Creating safe, high-quality clothing and accessories at a compelling value is our highest priority. For more than 150 years, we have been a trusted partner to generations of families. Our decisions as a business are guided by our values and our determination to exceed our customers’ expectations by delivering extraordinary service and quality products at affordable prices.
Product Stewardship
Providing quality products for our customers means considering the safety, social, and environmental impacts of our goods and the materials we used to make them.
Our Restricted Substances List (RSL) designates chemicals which should be minimized or avoided as much as possible in Carter’s products. There are several reasons we might restrict a substance, including government legislation or regulation, health and safety concerns for customers and workers, or potential environmental hazards. We distribute the list to suppliers, vendors, and employees so they can be aware of and follow our chemical policies. Before shipping products, suppliers are required to test each product style for the presence of chemicals to ensure any concentration levels remain below the safe limits.
In March 2019, we provided suppliers with an expanded RSL that increased the number of restricted chemicals covered by the policy and introduced additional safeguards to further minimize customer risk and exposure to potentially harmful chemicals. We are currently implementing the new requirements of the expanded RSL throughout our supplier base. We expect that starting in 2021, suppliers will be required to fully follow our new RSL and heightened restricted substance requirements for our products.
Among the ways we ensure high quality is by evaluating and applying third-party sustainability certifications. We proudly use the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certification, which we expect to appear in one of our exclusive product brands beginning in late 2020. The Oeko-Tex Standard 100 is one of the most recognized and widely used labels for textiles that have been tested for harmful substances. To support the development of these product lines, we will require many of our raw material suppliers to carry Oeko-Tex certification for all materials they provide to Carter’s and will work with them to help them achieve their certification.
Cotton represents another opportunity to offer customers sustainable and quality products. Our Little Planet clothing line currently uses 100% certified organic cotton certified through the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), which is the leading global textile processing standard for organic fibers. This line reflects our commitment to continuous progress and our ability to innovate for sustainability. In 2018, we sourced 163,000 kg of organic cotton, a significant increase from the 62,000 kg in 2017.
Across all of our operations, human rights are a high priority, so in addition to monitoring the materials we use in our manufacturing process, we seek to prohibit the use of raw materials associated with human rights abuses.
As an example, due to the systematic, government-sanctioned use of forced child labor in the harvesting of cotton in Uzbekistan, we prohibit the use of any Uzbek cotton in our products. Additionally, to encourage the government of Uzbekistan to end the practice of forced child labor, we have worked with other international stakeholders by signing the Uzbekistan Cotton Pledge created by the Responsible Sourcing Network.
We do not source significant amounts of metals and other minerals, and strive to source the amounts we do use in ways that do not contribute to human rights abuses, and we work with our suppliers to ensure we do not source conflict minerals.