Sustainability & Ethics

Yes. To further our commitment to ethical trade, we joined the ETI as a foundation stage member in September 2012, and as of February 2014, are now a full member. You can read more about our commitments here. We aim to integrate ethical trade into the heart of our business and believe working with ETI is essential to achieving this aim. To learn more about ETI and what it means to be a member, visit their website.

The White Company is committed to improving working standards in its supply chains through the application of international labour standards. This includes a commitment to improving standards in those parts of the supply chain that are the most difficult to reach.

Historically, the lack of visibility of home workers in supply chains, combined with their complicated employment status in many countries, has made them a vulnerable group. We take an open and positive position towards home working as one of the first steps in making progress on improving their labour conditions. To do so helps to prevent driving the practice 'underground', which can have unintended consequences, such as workers losing their sole means of income.

We understand it is a complex issue, but believe skilled home workers are important to the quality, handcrafted nature of many of our products. It is this belief that feeds our commitment to help them improve.

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It sets out a range of measures on how modern slavery and human trafficking is dealt with in the UK. Any business that has a global turnover of £36 million or more and supplies goods or services in the UK is required to produce and publish an annual slavery statement. The statement must set out what steps the business has taken to tackle modern slavery in any part of its business, including its supply chain. We're pleased to publish our latest statement.

We carefully consider the materials we use across the business, only selecting the highest-quality fabrics and finishes. Alongside our skilled partners around the world, our London-based design team put concerted effort into sourcing new circular materials and responsible alternatives, while ensuring the quality and longevity of our product is never lost. We adhere to the highest standards and certifications to support this. We believe in timeless designs and carefully select natural materials, such as wood, wool, leather and linen, which become more beautiful with wear and use.

We partner with the best artisans and crafts people around the world, and endeavour to minimise our carbon footprint by ensuring our product is sourced from countries that specialise in the skills and techniques required to make it. 85% of our products come from five key countries: China, Portugal, the UK, Turkey and India. We also source from specialist artisan suppliers from Denmark, Spain and Vietnam.

It is important to us that we support specialist industries and the jobs they provide around the world. China has developed one of the leading global textile and hardgoods industries, boasting cotton, cashmere and silk renowned for their quality. We are proud to know where all our materials come from, as it plays a big part in ensuring the quality of product, but also helps us to manage and monitor our supply chains. As a result, we do not use cotton grown or processed in the XUAR. As ETI members, we also work in partnership with our peer brands and industry experts to identify and mitigate any potential risk to workers’ rights.

We hand-select our suppliers based on their specialist skill and craft, and are determined to ensure that when our product is made, great care and attention has been taken to better the livelihoods of the workers involved. We foster longstanding relationships – over 80% of our suppliers have been our partners for longer than 10 years. All our Tier 1 suppliers have third-party audits and we review them annually, sharing best practice where there is the opportunity.

We do not test on animals and do not condone animal cruelty of any kind. We have banned the use of fur and rabbit. In addition, our bath and body products will all be vegan by the end of 2022. We use responsibly sourced feather and down, alongside fibres certified by the Responsible Wool Standard, The Good Cashmere Standard® and other ethical bodies, to ensure best practice is met and maintained for both the animals and farmers. All the leather, skins, down and feathers we use are by-products of the meat industry.

We are continually working and investing in sustainable packaging and have made several efforts to reduce our packaging output, from recyclable bags to using recycled content and investing in a new packaging machine in our Distribution Centre. It remains a top priority for us and we are always striving to do more.

We strive to minimise our carbon footprint by ensuring our product is sourced from countries that specialise in the skills and techniques required to make it, and to deliver it to our customer with transportation methods that have the smallest possible impact on the environment. In line with UK government and international directives, we aim to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

We partner with Thrift+, helping our customers make use of unwanted clothes. Customers can request a ThriftBag at till point in stores, or add one to their order online, fill it with any unwanted clothing or footwear and send back to Thrift+ free of charge. Thrift+ will then sell the products online and 33% of the sale price will go to a charity of the customer’s choice. We hope to roll this out with online orders later in the year, too.