OUR FACTORIES
Creating more sustainable fashion accessories starts with transparency when it comes to the manufacturing process. BARTS® takes pride in its long-term relationships with suppliers, some of which have existed for over 20 years. These strong partnerships with all our suppliers, whether that be small suppliers specializing in hand-knit techniques or larger scale factories with a focus on new technologies, means they share our values of quality, sustainability, and innovation. They are part of our BARTS® family.
We continuously discuss our Barts Responsibility Strategy with our suppliers. This allows us to work collaboratively with them to produce more sustainably. We also have a permanent employee in China who visits them on a regular basis to ensure ethical practices are implemented. Due to this, we know exactly what the conditions in our factories are. Our production is mainly based in China and we explicitly don’t produce in countries where we have concerns about the circumstances.
CODE OF CONDUCT
We are aware that we are all responsible for the planet we live on, the people who make our products and the world’s resources that we use. This includes certain social and environmental responsibilities in our supply chain that are at the top of our list of priorities. For this reason, we have our own Code of Conduct. This Code of Conduct clarifies and lays down the minimum standards we expect each factory to meet. This includes no use of child- or forced labor, no discrimination, no excessive working hours, etc. Our aim is to encourage responsible manufacturing and healthy working conditions.
You can download the BARTS® Code of Conduct here.
RESTRICTED SUBSTANCES LIST
Besides our Code of Conduct, we have also introduced our own Restricted Substances List (RSL). This list is raising the bar of applicable legal regulations; to guarantee that the legislation regarding the proper use of chemicals and substances is maintained. It contains all restricted chemicals and the acceptable limits for our products. This way we secure high product safety. To ensure compliance, our products are regularly checked by third party certified testing laboratories.
MEET THE MAKERS
We don’t choose our suppliers just because of the products they are able to make, but we are also interested in their story. We visit our suppliers on a regular basis to experience what our factories are really like and we would love to give you a glimpse “behind the scenes” and meet our makers.
A Loving Family Business
Recently, we visited the Lu family from Jiangsu, one of our suppliers. It's a family business where the owners fully participate in the day to day work. The owners' parents are always around, growing roses in and around the factory site to brighten the place up. They also love to cook, so they’ll provide everyone in the factory with fresh and healthy food every day. Everything is home grown, they even have a pond where they breed their own fish. We couldn't think of a better place to produce our beanies than this little self-sufficient farm!
Handmade jewellery
We met Jimmy and his wife Sonya years ago on the beach of Seminyak, Bali. Both were selling their goods on the beach: Sonya her handmade jewellery and Jimmy his Henna tattoos. During our talks we discussed how great it would be if they created items for BARTS®. That was the start of our collaboration. Jimmy and Sonya are the parents of two boys and they live in the area of Canggu. To Balinese people, family is always number one, so they are extremely happy that, because of our collaboration, they can now pay for their their boy's schooling. We will continue to travel back to the island where Jimmy and Sonya make their amazing bracelets and necklaces and we can’t wait to be greeted by their smiles.
