Carbon Footprint
At People Tree, we've been using low-carbon methods in the production of our clothes since before the concept of Carbon Footprints had been 'invented'. We're happy everyone's talking about it.
You see, where possible, we use manual labour over machinery. Many of our men's shirts are woven by hand (rather than on a powered loom) by our Fair Trade partner Folk's weavers in Pryoti, Bangladesh. The fabric made on one hand loom in a year will release 1 tonne less CO2, than the equivalent produced on power loom.
(Labour intensive methods like these also create more employment – see our Fair Trade pages for more info.) In the same way, one acre of organic cotton instead of an acre of conventional cotton reduces CO2 release by two tones a year.
The best thing about the fabric though, is that hand woven garments have a unique feel and look, that just cannot be achieved by mass production.
Then there's transportation. At People Tree, we ship our garments and accessories by sea whenever possible. The only times we use air freight are to make sure seasonal stock arrives on time – after all, if we don't keep selling our clothes, we wouldn't be providing sustainable income to marginalised people in developing countries.
Talking of which – our shop is this way...
