Fair Trade

In our world today, handcraft production is the second largest form of employment behind agriculture. Serrv's fair trade mission is dedicated not only to paying our artisans fair wages and ensuring safe working conditions, but to creating opportunity for individuals, communities, and environments to thrive and grow. More than a business philosophy, fair trade is the development of relationships built on respect, honesty, freedom, and dignity.

Our Values

As a founding member of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) and the Fair Trade Federation (FTF), Serrv is committed to a code of practice based upon these fair trade values:

Security

We pay fair wages up front, guaranteeing long-term, sustainable livelihoods for artisans and their families, and assuming all business risk associated with the sale of their products. 

Education  

We invest in literacy, life skills, and vocation training for our artisans—and in access to education for their families—to grow businesses, self-sufficiency, and the opportunity for  a brighter future.

Responsibility  

We are accountable to artisans and farmers, their communities, cultures, and environments—and seek to build relationships based on respect, compassion, integrity, and transparency.

Rights

We are committed to men, women, and children achieving basic human rights, including safe working conditions, fair wages for their work, education, and freedom from exploitation.

Value

We honor the creativity and craftsmanship of our artisans’ work and tradition

Our Commitment to the Environment

Environmental degradation is linked directly to poverty in much of the world. Serrv’s mission to fight poverty cannot happen without a thriving environment and healthy, sustainable practices.

We work with our artisans to ensure that our products are made responsibly, with sustainable materials—including recycled and remnant materials—and production techniques. Many of our artisans are active in environmental projects within their communities, including sustainable harvesting of materials, waste water treatment, reforestation initiatives, and environmental education programs. We also import the vast majority of our products by sea, which takes longer but has much less of an environmental impact than air freight.

At our offices, we incorporate sustainability into all aspects of our operations, from recycling and composting to the purchase of environmentally friendly cleaning products. In our warehouse, we reduce waste by reusing packaging materials, encouraging reusable products and recycling. Our catalogs are also printed on FSC-certified paper using inks with renewable resource content.

Our warehouse “Green Machine” converts used cardboard boxes into packing material. In its first year alone, we reused more than 2,000 boxes!