Corporate Clothing Range

Susan's Musings

Many of our customers require corporate clothing from us. As we specialise in supplying company clothing with the best possible sustainable and ethical provenance this can be quite a challenge.  Our flagship range of Fairtrade certified and organic garments are part of the range of corporate clothing.  In addition we do have the ethical policies for our more formal range and can advise, and point people in the right direction.  For example we have a range of corporate clothing which includes ethically sourced shirts and blouses, suits, trousers, skirts and workwear.  This is manufactured for us by the Co-op who are founder members of the ETI (Ethical Trading Initiative).  This range of corporate clothing is excellent quality and we supply one of our larger clients, Canon,  trousers from this range for their technical support staff throughout the UK and Ireland.

One way to increase the sustainable provenance of corporate clothing is to manufacture bespoke clothing for our clients. Here at Cotton Roots we  have the facility to manufacture shirts and blouses using organic cotton or even made with recycled fibres.  Although we have manufactured bespoke items using our Gold rated WRAP certified manufacture we have the no orders yet for the organic or recycled fibre options.  As it is relatively new I am sure this will change soon.  I will definitely celebrate our first order for these on the blog 🙂

Our full range of sustainable and ethical corporate clothing is being put on our website  over the next few weeks as at the moment only a tater is online.  So much to do and the time just keeps ticking by.

Fairtrade & Organic Aprons Supplied to Dorset Cereals

Fairtrade Clothing, Food Industry, Organic stuff, Organisations Wearing Fairtrade, Uncategorized

I recently looked at the Dorset cereals website. We supplied them with aprons which they need for prizes for a competition a while ago.  The aprons were a lovely chocolate brown and were both organic and Fairtrade certified aprons.

Well Dorset Cereals have a lovely website and a great competition to win a camper van which is fun and a little/very addictive 🙂  Have a go at http://www.dorsetcereals.co.uk/

Organic and Fair trade garments on the BBC

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We were delighted to host the BBC Working Lunch team to Cotton Roots and Impact Trading.  It was exciting to be filmed at work and a great boost to us all here.  The reason they wanted to film us was to shouw our ethically sourced aprons, t shirts, polo shirts and hoodies.  They are all either Fairtrade certified or organic garments.

I have been watching various clips on You Tube today showing cotton farmers around the world who are changing to organic and Fairtrade certified cotton.  It was good to take the time to do this. Sometimes when business is tough I have doubt about how much we can invest into making this side of our business work.  However watching these short films make me quietly more determined and somehow believing that it is not only the right decision for our suppliers in India but one that will be be a good one for us.  It will need us to continue to go on ordering stock and believing.  Call it a hunch or instinct I am still going along the path we have chosen.  Just writing this in the blog, remembering the BBC here and all the telephone calls we have had from customers pleased to have found us makes it “stick” more in my mind.

You can view the feature from the BBC Working Lunch here – BBC and Cotton Roots

Bespoke WRAP certified polo shirt manufacture

Ethical & Sustainable Garment Certification, WRAP Certification

Great news! Our  company Impact Trading have won a good order from the marketing agency Brand Communications. This is to supply a large number of bespoke, made to order polo shirts , designed especially for their client.  Because we are manufacturing for Brand we can’t let you know who the garments are for – shhhhh it’s confidential.

However we are working with a supplier in Pakistan and we are pleased to say that even though we have had  to work to a tight price we have been able to supply WRAP certified garments.  We were delighted.  Not only that the factory is a gold rated WRAP factory.

WRAP certification means that the factory manufacturing the garments meets twelve basic criteria, in relation to employment rights.  So it’s emphasis is upon the manufacturing stage rather that starting at the cotton producer stage which fairtrade excels in.  WRAP certification is growing more prevalent, it is a huge improvement and shows that the publicity and campaigning is starting to reap rewards.

Our top passion here at Cotton Roots is to supply Fairtrade certified clothing, but WRAP is big step in the right direction. We are so pleased that Brand Communications chose us to trust us, once again, with the manufacture and that ethical improved sourcing is part of the package.

WRAP certification information can be found on our certification page here,

which includes links to the WRAP website for further information.

Bespoke Fairtrade School Polo Shirt

Fairtrade Clothing, Fairtrade School Uniform, Uncategorized

We started the process some time ago.  The school in Bridgend have a very active eco committee run by pupils. They decided that they wanted to include ethical school uniform in their approach to sustainability and fairness.

The school is being rebuilt and they decided upon a new colour and a new style for their summer uniform and “re-launch” of the school.  We are at the stage where they have been pleased with the final samples are we are ready to go into production.  Purple with grey trim on the collar and cuffs, also the option of grey polo shirts with purple trim.  Even if we do say so oursleves they really do look smart.

They will soon go into production ready for spring and summer next year.  The best news?   They are made with Fairtrade certifed cotton from our cotton roots range.

Made to order Fairtrade school uniform polo shirts

This is the first secondary school customer we have who have chosen the Fairtrade cotton option.  We have lots of primary schools who have fairtrade uniform.  So I am really pleased that the whole order is exciting………Fairtrade, bespoke, made especially for them, and that they are from my homeland South Wales.

If you know of a school considering Fairtrade or Fair Trade school uniform please put them in touch with us.  They can ask for me, Susan, and we will work with them from design concept, sampling, right  throught to the final product.

wwwcottonroots.co.uk

Happy days!

Fairtrade School Uniform Sweatshirts

Fairtrade Clothing, Fairtrade School Uniform
Fairtrade Junior School Sweatshirt

We think we are the first and the only company with Fairtrade certified school sweatshirts in stock.  We now have red and navy and two school have started to order the stock.

It has been quite a long process.  Lots of samples made my Morses in India, patterns made and re-made.  Styles adapted until we were finally happy.  Our Fairtrade cotton for the sweatshirts still comes from northern India in Gujarat.  It will be interesting to see how many parents and schools will want them.  Well perhaps more than interesting as this has been quite an adventure from start to the finished product.  See our fairtrade school uniform –  Fairtrade school sweatshirts, fairtrade school polo shirts here. Continue reading Fairtrade School Uniform Sweatshirts →

Fairtrade School Uniform

Fairtrade School Uniform

The news is that we have received our stock of children’s primary school Fairtrade polo shirts.  We now have white, red, sky blue and yellow.  Better still we have four new schools who have chosen the Fairtrade route for their school uniform options.

I have found that schools often investigate Fairtrade school uniform  when a committed parent gets involved.  It seems that we are at the same stage that coffee and bananas were fifteen years or so ago.  These committed people really do make an enormous impact.  Bit by bit things happen.

Our white Fairtrade school polo shirts have been the biggest success along with the white Fairtrade school t shirts.  While we are still taking orders for the coloured options the quantities are less.

At Cotton Roots we are still trying and committing our resources to ensure that schools can have a choice.  One secondary school in my homeland Wales is really leading the way.  They are having Fairtrade uniform made to order for them.  I will give details in my next blog but int the meantime we are delighted to be supplying them 🙂 and I am very pleased and proud that the school is from the beautiful South Wales Valleys.

Free Energy Grant £500

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FREE!
Energy Grant £500 for businesses Good news!  Did you know that there is a simple no strings attached grant for £500 available to businesses? We have applied for it and I have been pleasantly surprised as it has been a very simple process.

Basically if you can improve efficiency by reducing your energy consumption you can get the grant. We have applied for a grant so that we can install a fan in the ceiling of our premises to push down the heat, and a plastic curtain to cut out the loss of heat through our warehouse doors.

It is great to find something that supports our business to continue our work towards a sustainable approach.

Click here for a link and application form. If I can offer any assistance please give me a call. 01908 290482

Cotton Prices

Susan's Musings

Well…..times are very “interesting” shall we say at the moment.  Cotton prices have reached all all time high by a considerable amount. They have $2 a pound and it has filtered through to garment manufacture over the last year.

The reasons why are many.  But basically there is a world shortage.

Less and less cotton has been grown globally because other crops have been more viable for farmers to grow.  particularly in th USA where farmers were given money by their government to grow crops which could produce fuel.  So they have reduced production of cotton and grown corn instead.  Cotton  a little while ago in the USA was being sold for around 40-50 cents a pound.  However in time we think that some of these farmers will switch back to growing cotton and help reduce the short supply

Then there was the bad weather and severe flooding in Pakistan and a bad monsoon in India hit their production hard.  The final blows were a poor crop in China and then the Indian government slapped export quotas on raw cotton.

The result – a shortage of cotton. Shortages of anything means higher prices as we manufacturers rush to buy cotton so that we are sure not to let our customers down.

Phew.   It si taking its toll but in one way it has given more “clout” to the farmers who are now able to influence the price where once they were in the control of the big buyers.

Cranfield MBA Students come to Cotton Roots

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We are really pleased – but also a little nervous.  Two MBA students are coming along to Cotton Roots to scope a study report identifying environment, society and governance issues to our company.  This is a part of their “Managing Sustainable Business” MBA assignment.  I hope that the study will be useful to them, a hands on opportunity and also hopefully it will be very useful to us!  I find it motivating when we have input from someone outside the business.  Their views are different to ours and sometimes takes us in other new directions.  So watch this space.

As a alumni of Cranfield I can highly recommend them.  I always come away full of ideas for our company.