Dharma's Guiding Principles
Dharma Trading Co was started in 1969 on the principal that it's possible to be
involved in business while maintaining good ethical values.
This is to say that one can be successful in business while acting honestly,
truthfully and fairly.
Therefore, honest, truthful and fair treatment of customers, suppliers and
employees is the most important goal of the company while it tries to make a
profit.
Dharma's Goals
To be a company that keeps its commitments to its employees, customers and
suppliers.
To "blow our customers' minds" with the excellence of our customer service.
To make Dharma a great place to work.
To make a profit.
Contacting Dharma
We are located in San Rafael, California which is just north of San Francisco.
We are open from 8am to 5pm (which is 11am to 8pm on the east coast) Monday to Friday.
Tel: (800) 542-5227 Toll-free from anywhere in the USA & Canada
Tel: (415) 456-7657 Everywhere else
Fax: (415) 456-8747
Mail: P.O. Box 150916 San Rafael, CA 94915
Street address: 654 Irwin St. San Rafael, CA 94901
Dharma's Environmental Scorecard
We're working at it. Here's what we've been able to do so far:
- We gave up styrofoam packing peanuts and replaced them with a packing material made from potato starch. It seems to do a good a job of protecting the jars, and can be dissolved in water after. It costs us a lot more but what the hey.
- The black containers for packing the dyes are now made 100% from ground-up recycled plastic. (A black color pellet is added to the molten plastic to give it a uniform color).
- We reuse or recycle incoming cardboard shipping boxes.
- All of our new shipping boxes are now either partly or 100% made from recycled cardboard.
- The plastic bags we use to protect the clothing are made from 30% recycled material.
- We have been using Soy inks to print our catalogs and flyers.
- The catalogs and flyers are being printed on recycled paper.
- More of our clothing products are made without the use of chemicals.
- We recycle our waste paper, bottles, cans.
- We use 95% Post consumer recycled paper products in our warehouse and store.
Dharma's Sweat Shops & Slave Labor Policy
The owners and employees of Dharma are absolutely against the idea of unfair treatment of workers, forced labor, child labor, and anything that deprives a person of human dignity.
If we should become aware that anything we sell is produced under any of those conditions we would refuse to continue selling it. Moreover, we are actively involved in promoting fair trade clothing sewing in Bolivia and Indonesia. In Bolivia, the money goes straight to the workers, with no "middle man". In Indonesia, the workers have fair pay and quite good benefits. You can find the products from the cooperatives we support in those countries on our web-site. Clothing that is made for us in India - we have been reassured that the company importing it sends someone to the factories frequently, making sure there are no violations of the human rights contracts each factory has signed and that the workers have fair wages and benefits.
We go further in that Dharma provides both free cataract surgery for the poor and financially supports open heart surgeries for poor indigenous children in Bolivia.
That said, many of our products are produced in factories and workshops in places we have never been to and we have no idea what goes on there. Our orders are not significant enough to allow us to demand proof that all is well with the workforce. We are in reality a small company without great "clout" and we can not afford to visit every supplier in every country.
Having said that, we have no reason to believe that any of our suppliers are abusing their workers.
