Our Makers
Transparency is something we take very seriously at nat’v basics, and we know it really matters to our customers to be able to trust that we’re doing the right things. If you’re the sort of good sort, who cares enough about your impact to choose undies designed from a sustainability mindset, you probably also want to know about the people that made them. Specifically, the health, safety and wellbeing of those people. We get it. We do too, and we like you even more now for caring enough to come and read this page.
We worked extremely hard to find the people that we wanted to partner with - there aren’t many manufacturers and suppliers in the world that can deliver the balance of quality and adherence to sustainability best practices that we demanded for our product.
Most importantly though, we found partners to work with that meet our high standards of working conditions and comply with our social responsibility principles.
Now, nat’v basics is not a small, artisanal, handmade fashion brand. Our designs may be elegantly simple on the surface, but the technology behind our fabric is incredibly sophisticated and cutting edge. There aren’t actually that many manufacturers in the world that have experience dealing with it. There are even less that know how to handle it in a suitably sustainable way.
Why are we telling you this? Well, as you might imagine, the sort of super schmick, fancy pants futuristic factory that CAN tick all our boxes, has a whole team of people working together to create our undies. And, if you’re like us, you will definitely have questions about their work environment, their work-life balance and their wages. So we’d like to answer those questions for you, and open up the conversation if you have more.
Where is the factory?
Our factory is located Jiaxing China (1 hour outside Shanghai)
How much are the people that work on nat’v basics paid?
Workers are paid 24% more than legal minimum wage in local currency.
What are the working conditions like?
Our factory is independently audited by the BSCI and received a rating of A (which is the best score) in all areas but Decent Working Hours. They marked a lower score in this area because some employees do work overtime, however they did state in the report that those workers voluntarily chose to do overtime and were paid for their overtime work.
For ratings A and B: BSCI full audits are valid for 2 years.
What is the BSCI?
BSCI is an initiative of the Foreign Trade Association (FTA), the leading business association of European and international commerce that brings together over 1,500 retailers, importers, brands and national associations to improve the political and legal framework for trade in a sustainable way. BSCI support more than 1,500 FTA member companies to integrate social compliance at the heart of their global supply chains.
You can read more about our supply chain over here too.
