letter from leadership
To our Carter’s Family,
For more than 160 years, families have counted on Carter’s to provide high quality apparel and related products, for babies and children. We’re honored to play a part in the everyday moments and big milestones that shape childhood. We take pride in continuing to lead the market in young children’s apparel in North America. What sets us apart is the consumer equity we’ve created with generations of parents and care givers through our strong brand portfolio, unique multi-channel business model, and core product pillars of safety, durability, and sustainability.
We recognize how much is being asked of young families right now with rising costs, endless to-do lists, and an uncertain economic outlook. Despite these challenges, we know that consumer sentiment continues to trend towards companies leading with purpose—companies like Carter’s. Our continued focus on our Little Planet brand, which we believe has quickly become the market leader in organic fabrics and sustainable materials, is an example of our purpose-driven commitment to corporate responsibility.
Experienced parents with older children know they can trust our products to pass the test of time through multiple washings and durability amidst playground wounds and mealtime spills. Additionally, our childhood essentials brand, SkipHop, offers innovative “grow-with-me" products, such as exercise tables and highchairs, that grow with children from baby to toddler, reducing the need for parents to buy multiple versions of the same item. These products support a longer product lifecycle and a reduced environmental impact.
Several years ago, we built our corporate responsibility strategy: Raise the Future. This strategy, rooted in three pillars—Product, Planet, and People—reflects our commitments to provide more sustainable product offerings, reduce our carbon footprint, and uplift our workers and communities. For Carter’s, Raise the Future isn’t just a strategy—it’s a commitment to creating a better world for future generations. We have developed apparel made from more sustainable materials, set company-wide climate targets verified by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and enhanced our traceability and social compliance programs.
We recognize that our corporate responsibility efforts are a work in progress, as is raising future generations. Some of the progress we made in 2024 includes:
- Product: 99% of our apparel products, excluding those made by outside vendors or that are GOTS-certified, meet the OEKO-TEX 100 Standard certification, ensuring they’ve been tested to be free from thousands of harmful chemicals
- Planet: More than 60 percent of our product packaging is made of recycled content, reducing our consumption of virgin plastic packaging
- People: We have invested almost $35M in communities through our corporate philanthropy programs
Recognizing this progress also requires us to recognize the challenges we face in growing our business and deepening our relationship with consumers amid the current economic backdrop. In uncertain times, it’s trusted brands such as Carter’s and OshKosh B’gosh that families turn to. We are focused on showing up for today’s parents by listening closely, innovating responsibly, and continuing to meet the real-life product needs of families.
Our responsibility and our growth efforts continue to be led by our mission—to serve the needs of families with young children, with a vision to be the world’s favorite brands in young children’s apparel and related products. All that we do at Carter’s starts with our product, but none of our success over the years would be possible without our people, and the people in our broader networks and communities. I’d like to thank our more than 15,000 global employees around the world for their dedication and passion for our brands, our mission, and all they do for families every day.
We have our work set out for us to become an even stronger, more sustainable, more responsible brand, and we will continue to deliver high quality products that our shareholders have long known us for. I can’t wait to share with you all our future progress in reports to come.
Doug Palladini
Chief Executive Officer & President, Director
