Carter's

Aug 09, 2022

Carter's is an American fashion retailer founded in 1865 in Needham, Massachusetts, by William Carter. The multinational clothing-retail company creates children's apparel for babies, toddlers, and kids.

Carter's makes clothing, accessories, shoes, swimwear, and underwear. It owns other brands such as Skip Hop and OshKosh B'gosh and operates nearly 1000 stores in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Carter's is developing more sustainable materials and processes and inspiring the generation raising the future. It has a 10-year commitment to improve the well-being of at least 10 million children and families.

Carter's offers a sustainable collection made from organic or recycled materials called Raise the Future. It also spread out this initiative to Skip Hop and OshKosh B'gosh.

Carter's is a fashion brand and clothing retailer based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It makes apparel, footwear, and accessories and offers a collection of basics, activewear, underwear, loungewear, swimwear, outerwear, knitwear, sleepwear, bags, and accessories.

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Sustainability Rating: 4/10

Rating FAQ

Category: Clothing, accessories, shoes, bags

For: Children

Type: Basics, knitwear, activewear, underwear, loungewear, swimwear, outerwear, nightwear, boots, flats, sandals, sneakers

Style: Casual

Quality: Low

Price: $

Sizes: XS-2XL, 4-14 (US), 6-16 (UK), 34-44 (EU), 6-16 (AU)

Fabrics: Cotton, linen, hemp, lyocell, viscose, acetate, polyester, nylon, spandex, acrylic, neoprene, polyurethane, rubber, leather, wool

100% Organic: No

100% Vegan: No

Ethical & Fair: No

Recycling: Yes

Producing countries: Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Bangladesh, United States, Canada, Mexico

Certifications: GOTS, GRS, Oeko-Tex

Sustainability Practices

Carter's takes wide-ranging measures to reduce its environmental footprint, its consumption of water, energy, and other resources, avoid waste, and combat climate change.

It wants to better our world through its commitments to developing
more sustainable products and processes. However, the majority of its business remains detrimental to the environment.

Carter's only uses a tiny proportion of organic materials such as organic cotton or recycled materials such as recycled polyester. Only very few of its collections are dedicated to sustainable fashion.

Most of the fabrics it uses are either natural without relevant certifications, such as regular cotton or linen, or synthetic petroleum-based fibers such as polyester, nylon, acrylic, and more.

Carter's also uses a little amount of semi-synthetic fibers or regenerated cellulosic fabrics such as lyocell, acetate, and viscose.

Carter's doesn't publishes a list of all its manufacturers and processing facilities on its corporate website. It doesn't disclose how it chooses its network of suppliers.

The 2021 Fashion Transparency Index gave Carter's a score of only 12% based on how much the group discloses about its social and environmental policies, practices, and impacts.

Carter's manufactures its clothes in many East Asian countries where human rights and labor law violations still happen every day.

The American clothing retailer doesn't show any labor certification standard that would ensure good working conditions, decent living wages, health, safety, and other important rights for workers in its supply chain.

Carter's has a code of conduct that applies to all its suppliers and subcontractors based on the regulations set by the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Carter's assesses compliance with its Code of Conduct by informal visits or third-party audits with or without notice. It intends to improve working conditions and labor practices in factories.

Carter's doesn't use any exotic animal skin, hair, fur, or angora. But it uses leather and wool to manufacture many of its clothing pieces.

These animal-derived materials are cruel and unethical. They also harm the environment by producing greenhouse gases and waste. More sustainable alternatives exist.

Sustainability Goals

Carter's has committed to reducing its environmental impact across the entire supply chain. It aims to source only from suppliers that use the Sustainable Apparel Coalition's Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) by 2025.

Carter's plans to reduce its GHG emissions by 50% in its Scope 1 and 2, and 25% in its scope 3 (in the Purchased Goods category), by 2030 compared to 2019, to achieve net-zero emissions in 2040.

100% of its cotton and polyester fibers will be sustainable in 2030. Carter's will divert 80% of waste from landfill by 2025 and establish a water-use reduction goal by 2023.

Buy Here

Discover Carter's sustainable collections at Carters.com.

Reviews And Experiences With Carter's

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What We're Up Against

Multinational corporations overproducing cheap products in the poorest countries.
Huge factories with sweatshop-like conditions underpaying workers.
Media conglomerates promoting unethical, unsustainable products.
Bad actors encouraging overconsumption through oblivious behavior.
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