Research Outline

Social and Environmental Missions - Home and Lifestyle Brands

Goals

To understand and demonstrate the social responsibility and sustainability efforts of some home and lifestyle brands. For each brand, information to include will be on how they share their sustainability and social responsibility efforts via their website, if they use an icon system for products, and any clear language or "about "pages about sustainability and/or social impact that outlines their values and/or goals and commitments.

Early Findings

Home and Lifestyle Brands With Social and Environmental Efforts/Missions

1. Patagonia

  • Patagonia's environmental and sustainability mission is the first thing anyone sees when they land on the brand's official website, even before they can browse through the clothing the company sells.
  • Patagonia has a page on its website titled "Environmental Justice is Racial Justice," where the company outlines its environmental conservation mission equals environmental justice to racial justice since most of the communities that live near polluters are people of color and low-income communities.
  • Patagonia also has an "ActionWorks" page on its website where they, "connect committed individuals to organizations working on environmental issues in the same community" and also "give grants to organizations that identify the root causes of environmental problems and approach issues with a commitment to long-term change."
  • Patagonia is committed to being a global leader in social responsibility and environmental sustainability, and the brand provides more information on its efforts in this front on this website page titled "our footprint."
  • The brand has always been political, and recently, some of its apparel collection had the tag "vote the assholes out," probably meaning political action against US leaders not supporting environmental reforms.

2. The Citizenry

  • The Citizenry has a page/section on its website that outlines its social efforts and impacts.
  • The brand focuses on how it partners with master artisans from all over the world, using local materials, creating sustainable relationships with its artisans, and the brand's fair wage practices.
  • According to The Citizenry, through their "commitment to providing fair wages, happy working environments, and sustaining grants, our artisan partners are able to take their crafts and their businesses to new places."
  • The brand's social impact page has its philosophy and a list of the artisans they partner with from all over the world.
  • While The Citizenry does not provide much information about its icon program, some of its products bear the "made by hand" tag and the place where it was made as credit to its artisans.

3. West Elm

  • West Elm has pages on its website that demonstrates its values such as fair trade certified, craftsmanship, organic, and sustainable sourcing.
  • According to the brand, 60% of their products support at least one of their sustainability initiatives. The company's sustainability tagline is "Good for people. Good for the planet. Good for you."
  • West Elm has an icon program that describes and makes tags on its products depending on the social and sustainability initiative it supports. The icons/tags include locally-made, organic, sustainably-sourced, handcrafted, and certified non-toxic.

4. Anthropologie

Other Home and Lifestyle Brands With Dedicated Sustainability Programs

  • Other Home brands/companies with fair trade and responsible environment practices include Parachute, Ten Thousand Villages, Made Trade, Bolé Road Textiles, Jenni Kayne, and Our Place, among others.
  • Other Lifestyle brands with fair trade and responsible environment practices include Boden, Pact, EILEEN FISHER, Tradlands, Outerknown, Vetta, Reformation, among many others.

Summary of Our Early Findings Relevant to the Goals

  • During the first hour of research, we provided a summary of how some lifestyle and home brands share their sustainability and social responsibility efforts through their websites, including the use of an icon system for products.
  • We also provided a list of other ethical and sustainable home and lifestyle brands.