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a letter from leadership

To Our Carter’s Family,
For over 160 years, families have trusted Carter’s as a leader in providing high-quality apparel and related products for babies and young children, from first days home to first days of school. We are honored to play a role in those memories, and we take seriously the responsibility that comes with that trust. Generations of parents and caregivers have grown up with Carter’s, and what keeps them coming back is straightforward: a family of brands they trust, a multichannel business model that meets them wherever they shop, and products built on safety, durability, and sustainability. Our commitment extends beyond the products themselves to doing right by the world our children will inherit.
We know how much is being asked of young families right now. Rising costs and economic uncertainty are creating real pressure on household budgets. Despite these challenges, families continue to gravitate toward brands that lead with purpose, and that is exactly where Carter’s stands. Our Little Planet brand, for example, built around organically grown cotton and sustainable materials for families seeking a more conscious choice in baby and toddler apparel, surpassed $100M in sales in 2025, proof that families will choose sustainable products when they are made well and priced fairly for the value they provide.
Responsible product design shows up across our portfolio in different ways. OshKosh B’gosh continued its work on responsible manufacturing in 2025, expanding the use of ozone washing technology for our World’s Best Overalls™ and reducing water usage by more than 20% per garment. Our Skip Hop brand, offering baby and toddler essentials built around the promise of must-haves made better, extends value by designing products that adapt as children grow, reducing the need for families to replace items at every stage and extending the life of what they buy.
Ninety-nine percent of our apparel products, those that we source directly, meet the OEKO-TEX® Standard 100 (OEKO-TEX) certification, confirming they have been tested to be free from thousands of harmful substances.
This is the work that our corporate responsibility strategy, Raise the Future, is built to support. Now in its fourth year, the strategy is organized around three pillars—Product, Planet, and People—and 2025 was a year of meaningful progress across all three.
Product:
  • More than 86% of our cotton was sustainably sourced through Better Cotton InitiativeTM (BCITM) Cotton or organically grown cotton.
  • More than 60% of our 2025 sales were supported by responsible cotton sourcing through BCI Cotton or came from our Little Planet and PurelySoft™ collections made with organically grown cotton or viscose from responsibly managed forests.
Planet:
  • We reduced virgin plastic packaging by 90% in 2025 compared to our 2022 baseline, with 90% of our total plastic packaging now made from recycled content.
  • We advanced product circularity through pre-consumer textile recycling pilots and expansion of KIDCYCLE™, our in-store clothing takeback program, giving families a responsible way to recycle clothing that would otherwise be discarded.
People:
  • Since 2021, we have invested approximately $42.1M in communities through our corporate philanthropy programs, supporting families and children across the country and around the world.
  • In 2025, our employees contributed 24,300 hours of volunteer time, and we invested more than $8.05M in monetary and in-kind donations, showing up for the communities where we live and work.
Sharing this progress also means being clear about the work ahead. Families who grow with Carter’s—through a first baby, a second, a third—are the clearest measure of whether we are getting this right. In uncertain times, families turn to brands they trust. We stay focused on showing up for today’s parents by listening closely, making responsible choices, and continuing to meet the needs of families.
Our responsibility work is guided by our purpose: to embrace the wonder of childhood and uplift those shaping the future. The children in Carter’s today will be the parents and decision-makers of tomorrow, and that long view shapes every commitment in this report. None of this progress would be possible without our more than 15,000 global employees around the world, whose dedication to our mission and to the families we serve drives everything we do.
The work continues, and we are glad you are with us for it.
Sincerely,
Sharon Price John
Chief Executive Officer & President