Counter Sourcing commits to pay
17% of all our annual sales into three (3) funds with social justice and environmental protection intentions.
10% of our annual sales
To a Fair Trade Premium / Living Wage Fund
At least
10% of our annual sales pays for the worker-managed Fair Trade Premium / Living Wage Fund. Counter Sourcing pays the 10% of its sales into a worker-controlled Fair Trade Premium / Living Wage Fund. The intention is to increase wages of all workers in the factories from which we source to at least a living wage in Bangladesh, Brooklyn or wherever else we produce apparel.
6% of our annual sales
For workers rights support services
At least
6% of our annual sales pays for worker rights monitoring, research and consulting. Counter Sourcing’s contribution of 6% of its sales pay’s for expertise to assist factory workers and management to meet core Social and Labour standards set by the International Labour Organization (ILO), national labor and environmental legislation and buyers’ Codes of Conduct. This money is used to conduct worker-led workers rights monitoring, research and consulting. We start a trading relationship by first establishing baseline indicators for workers rights, using the most activist universities’ codes of conduct as our guide. We then measure baseline development indicators, based on the United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals, Targets and Indicators.
1% of our annual sales
For environmental protection
At least
1% of our annual sales funds a factory Joint Body managed environmental protection fund. The intention of this is to increase awareness, monitoring and care of the environment in or around the factories where we produce apparel.
As these three above mentioned funds are set-up and disbursed, we will post third-party reports on their use and impacts from baseline points and onwards, including workers rights indicators and development indicators such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The MDGs are the world’s targets for dramatically reducing extreme poverty in its many dimensions by 2015—income poverty, hunger, disease, exclusion, lack of infrastructure and shelter—while promoting gender equality, education, health, and environmental sustainability. See
www.un.org/millenniumgoals for more information.
Counter Sourcing is actively working with TransfairUSA and many other stakeholders to facilitate the creation of Production Standards for Fair Trade Apparel.
Our Guiding Principles are:
- To select factories and producers committed to full compliance with internationally recognized labor standards, as embodied in national legislation, conventions of the ILO, and retailers/brands/university codes of conduct;
- To trade with factories and producers where forced labor and exploitative child labor are not allowed;
- To trade with factories and producers committed to:
- Healthy and safe working conditions;
- Equal employment opportunities provision for all workers;
- Employees representation by a legitimate, representative labor union or other representative employee body;
- To pay factories and producers a fair minimum price that provides workers with a stable source of income as well as improved social services;
- To invest 17% of our annual sales into three (3) funds with social justice and environmental protection intentions, including 10% of our annual sales into a workers-controlled Fair Trade Premium / Living Wage Fund to support a Living Wage for all workers making Counter Sourcing products;
- To continuously develop more environmentally sound practices, such as organic cotton and natural dyes substitution options;
- To manage all aspects of trade, production and development with transparency and openness to public accountability.
