What we require of ourselves - Spreadshirt's Ethical Guidelines

Spreadshirt strives to earn respect from all of its employees, customers, partners, and stakeholders. To accomplish this, we must make decisions that reflect economic, social, and environmental responsibilities. Spreadshirt's ethical policies should guide our teams in decisions related to Business Relations, Customer Relations, Workers' Rights, Environmental Awareness and Printed Designs.

 

Business Relations

Every business and professional relationship must reflect our obligation to honesty, integrity, social responsibility and legal regulations.

 

Fair Production Conditions

Spreadshirt requires its suppliers to provide fair work and production conditions within their capability. This includes, among other labour standards, the assured prevention of child labour and the guarantee of fair payment. To ensure these standards, we work with suppliers who bindingly sign our Social Code of Conduct, or provide similar binding assurances of their own.

In addition, Spreadshirt works to gather detailed information about the supplier's production conditions (Social Audit Reports, reports on local incidents tested by other textile processors).

 

Relationship with our Partners

We are committed to maintaining our relationships to our suppliers and other business partners and to fulfil our responsibility as a good customer.

 

Choice

We choose our suppliers and other business partners regarding their qualifications, their experience as well as other legitimate business interests. The selection must under no circumstances be affected by personal relationships or by the acceptance of any advantageous compensation.

 

Do Not Accept Illegal or Unethical Benefits or Payments

We strictly prohibit any payment or benefit offered by a third party that misleads consumers or partners and influences the recommendation, use or purchase of our products or services. We also prohibit our employees from accepting such payments or benefits from a partner, vendor or third party with the intention to influence our business.

 

Sustainability and Dedication

Sustainability

We are committed to supporting efforts to preserve our environment. Our team works to offer environmentally-friendly options across our product line and support recycling in our own production facilities.

 

Donations

We make donations to recognized charitable organizations. Donations made for these purposes must never be contingent on the purchase of our products or other considerations by the recipient of the donation. We support socially-recognized organizations, which use printed clothing to highlight social injustices, by providing these products at a special rate.

 

Design Printing

Clothing, particularly t-shirts, have become one of the most popular forms of self-expression. Spreadshirt explicitly values free expression of opinion. Therefore, we print almost all designs sent to us whether we, as a company or personally, like them or not. As much as we value freedom of expression, we do not print designs that violate legal regulations or cross our ethical boundaries.

 

The legal boundaries – What we are not allowed to print

Designs which include or express the following are illegal:

a) Pornographic content

b) violence-glorifying content

c) Discriminating, defamatory or offensive content based on race, gender, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age

 

Our ethical boundaries – What we refuse to print

‘No Hate on T-Shirts’ - Some designs fulfil the legal requirements, however are ethically questionable because they transport hate or offend others in an unacceptable manner. These are designs we will choose not to print. We include here, for example:

• Politically volatile designs: Designs which are in fact legal, however in our opinion unacceptably offend, disrespect, or ridicule others or invoke violence directly or indirectly because of gender, religious affiliation, political opinion or similar characteristics. We specifically include here designs with radical right- or left-wing themes.
• Impious or disrespectful designs: Designs which intentionally or unintentionally offend feelings like mourning or sympathy. For example, designs that they allude to victims of catastrophes or attacks in a disrespectful manner, or which glorify criminal acts.
• Designs harmful to young persons: Designs which communicate sexuality as pure gratification of desire or convey inhuman values; and designs which display unnatural sexual behaviour.

We will not print designs which involve one or more of these criteria. In addition, all of our employees have the right to refuse to print any design based on an ethical or moral standard of their own. If a number of employees refuse to print a design, this design will be reviewed by our Ethics and Standards Committee.