ABOUT US

Why Choose Us

Choosing us for your apparel needs means supporting a more equitable future for those who produce it.

The choices you make matter.
By choosing us, you are supporting:

  1. Famers

    By buying our products, you support democratically-organized farmers, such as Chenta. Fair Trade not only supplies them with a fair price and social premium, but it also facilitates long-term trade relationships and support for capacity building. This support enables Chenta to become more entrepreneurial in its business operations and an important local development actor, working to promote a more diverse and sustainable local economy, as well as gender equality.

  2. Workers

    The garment sector is among the most exploitative manufacturing industries. Fair Trade seeks to ensure that workers have sustainable livelihoods and are able to exercise basic labour rights (healthy and safe work environment, right to organize, etc.). We work with suppliers that take these goals very seriously.

  3. Students

    As a campus based-cooperative, we support students in three basic ways. First, as consumers, we provide them with access to sustainable garments. Second, as students, we provide them with experiential education opportunities (through placement courses, internships, summer job programs) which help them to understand and experience the opportunities and challenges in developing sustainable businesses. Part of our goal here is to help develop a new generation of sustainable entrepreneurs. Third, we also provide students with research opportunities to investigate sustainable businesses (especially Fair Trade enterprises).  

  4. Planet

    Historically, the cotton sector has been one of the most environmentally damaging industries and the largest user of chemical insecticides and herbicides.  By supporting Fair Trade and organic cotton producers, you not only help to eliminate such dangerous chemicals from the environment, but you also support farmers that are committed to agroecological approaches to farming, which help to preserve local ecosystems and bio-diversity.

Organic

For us, sustainability has both an environmental and social component. Organic certification is the primary tool for ensuring environmental sustainability. Organic cotton is grown without the use of herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers. This reduces costs to farmers and protects them from being exposed to toxic chemicals. Organic farming improves soils health and sequesters more carbon which helps to mitigate against climate change.

Fairtrade

The Green Campus Co-operative works with two suppliers in India. Assisi Garments is a social purpose enterprise run by Franciscan Nuns in Tamil Nadu. They provide training and education to disabled and disadvantaged women. They use their proceeds for community projects like schools, old age homes and hospitals. Rajlakshmi located in Kolotta, West Bengal is pioneer in organic garment manufacturing in India. They embrace a fair deal for farmers and workers and support vocational training programs for women in rural areas. They source cotton from Chetna Organic, a producer cooperative of small-scale farmers that relies on rain-fed agriculture.

Co-Operative

For us, sustainability has both an environmental and social component. Organic certification is the primary tool for ensuring environmental sustainability. Organic cotton is grown without the use of herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers. This reduces costs to farmers and protects them from being exposed to toxic chemicals. Organic farming improves soils health and sequesters more carbon which helps to mitigate against climate change.

Non-Profit

The Green Campus Co-operative works with two suppliers in India. Assisi Garments is a social purpose enterprise run by Franciscan Nuns in Tamil Nadu. They provide training and education to disabled and disadvantaged women. They use their proceeds for community projects like schools, old age homes and hospitals. Rajlakshmi located in Kolotta, West Bengal is pioneer in organic garment manufacturing in India. They embrace a fair deal for farmers and workers and support vocational training programs for women in rural areas. They source cotton from Chetna Organic, a producer cooperative of small-scale farmers that relies on rain-fed agriculture.

Why we're different

1

Sustainable

A major component of our mission is to support the efforts of small famers to produce sustainable goods and to make them more available, especially on school campuses. We see organic certification as a key benchmark for sustainability and sell exclusively organic apparel.

2

Co-Operative

We are a co-operative and subscribe to the co-operative principles. We incorporated as a co-operative because our organizational form ensures democratic control of the organization and encourages participation.

3

Fairtrade

We are a 100% Fair Trade company in that we only sell Fair Trade certified products. We are committed to Fair Trade values, including fair prices for small producers, support for democratically-controlled producers, and long-term solidarity-based trading relationships.

4

Non-Profit

As a sign of our commitment to our mission, which includes promoting sustainable products and providing experiential education, we incorporated as a “not-for-profit” co-operative. This way, we have a clearly defined social mission and any surplus that we make gets reinvested back into promoting that mission.

The next generation of sustainability

By choosing us, you are directly supporting the education of the next generation of consumers, entrepreneurs, and innovators. We are a non-profit, meaning that all of our income goes toward causes that help further our core mission. One of these missions is to educate students in sustainable practices to help shape a healthier, safer future. We do this through our partnership with York University's Experiential Education Program.

Making an impact

At GCC, we work with different types of partners to make a difference. We first started to work with the education sector – universities, colleges and schools. This has to do both with our own location at a university, and also with our belief that students are our most strategic resource in creating a more just and sustainable economy. While we our thankful to all the education institutions and student organizations that we work with, special mention has to made of the York University Bookstore, with whom we have a close working relationship. They were our first customer and have continued to support us in a wide variety of ways over the years.

Learn more about us