Crafted with Care. Created with Purpose.
Our Fair Trade products do more than provide families with a natural and meaningful farewell. They help support the skilled artisans and communities behind every handcrafted piece.
Through responsible partnerships, fair working practices, and respect for the environment, Passages® is committed to ensuring that care extends through every part of the product’s journey from the hands that create it to the family it ultimately serves.
What Fair Trade Means
Fair Trade is an approach to business centered on dignity, opportunity, and shared responsibility.
It encourages trading relationships that protect workers, support economically disadvantaged producers, and create opportunities for communities to flourish. It also promotes transparency, environmental responsibility, safe working conditions, and the payment of fair prices.
For Passages, Fair Trade reflects a simple belief: thoughtfully made products should honor the people who create them as well as the families who choose them.
Passages wicker caskets, coffins, and carriers are proudly certified fair trade products by Traidcraft, a leading fair trade certification organization. Traidcraft is dedicated to fighting poverty through trade, practicing and promoting approaches to trade that help people in developing countries to transform their lives.
Traidcraft says that their vision is “A world freed from the scandal of poverty, where trade is just, and people and communities can flourish.” At Passages International we fully stand behind this vision and are proud to be able to participate in working towards this goal.
Traidcraft certifies products based on strict principles aimed towards helping all parties involved in the trade process, specifically those in lower-income countries. Ten of those principles are:
- Creating opportunities for economically disadvantaged producers
- Transparency and accountability
- Fair trading practices
- Payment of a fair price
- Ensuring no child or forced labor is used
- Commitment to non-discrimination, gender equity, and freedom of association
- Ensuring clean, safe, and overall good working conditions for workers
- Providing capacity building opportunities for workers
- Promoting fair trade practices
- Exercising respect for the environment in all stages of the business
Look for the Traidcraft Fair Trade logo on products to confirm certification of fair trade practices.
What Fair Trade Means
Our woven caskets, coffins, and carriers are individually handcrafted by skilled artisans using traditional techniques and rapidly renewable natural materials.
The intricate weaving found in each piece is the result of patience, experience, and craftsmanship passed between generations. Because these products are made by hand rather than mass-produced, subtle variations in weave, color, and texture are natural. These differences are part of each product’s character and a reminder of the human hands behind its creation.
Choosing a handcrafted Fair Trade product recognizes the value of that skill while helping responsible craft traditions continue.
Better for People and the Planet
Social and environmental responsibility are deeply connected.
Many Passages Fair Trade products are made from renewable materials such as willow, bamboo, seagrass, and other natural fibers. These materials are carefully selected to provide dignified alternatives to conventional funeral merchandise while reducing dependence on resource-intensive materials.
Our natural caskets and carriers contain no metal components and are designed to biodegrade naturally when used in appropriate burial conditions. Many are also suitable for cremation, giving families greater freedom to choose a farewell that reflects their traditions, needs, and environmental values.