“Supply chains are made of people, not just products or paperwork.”
– Sara Otto
Supply chains touch almost everything we buy — clothes, home goods, gifts, art — yet most of us never really see how they work, or who they rely on.
In this episode of Flying the Coop, we’re joined by Sara Otto, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Nest, a nonprofit working globally to make artisan supply chains more equitable, transparent, and sustainable, especially for home-based and small-workshop makers who are often invisible to traditional oversight.
Sara shares how Nest operates at the intersection of ethics, compliance, logistics, and real-world commerce, translating “we want to do business better” into systems that actually protect workers’ rights and dignity.
Drawing on years of experience living and working alongside artisan communities, she offers a look at what real-deal ethical sourcing looks like.
What we talk about:
- How “social compliance” is built on relationships
- How Nest bridges the gap between global brands and small-scale artisans
- How transparency begins with simply knowing who is in a supply chain
- What equity looks like beyond paternalism or the “white savior” model
This conversation is a grounded, compassionate look at how complex global systems can be redesigned to respect humanity at every level.
Action items:
- Do you know where your favorite blanket came from? How do you feel when you think about its supply chain?
- Where are there opportunities to dive deeper into the supply chains of YOUR business? Start with Sara’s recommended first step: who is here?
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Subscribe for easy access to transcripts, show notes, our secret insider thoughts on the interviews… and the occasional goof reel.
Read the raw transcript:
[00:00:10] Anna: Welcome to Flying the Coop, a podcast about how business works and who it should work for.
[00:00:14] Janel: We are Janel and Anna, small business owners learning in public as we turn our company Strange Birds into a worker owned co op. And today we are interviewing Sara Otto, chief supply chain officer at Nest and a nonprofit that is making the global artisan community more visible, more equitable and more sustainable. Nest partners with artisans, brands and retailers all over the world to bring craft into the global marketplace. They also build systems that protect workers rights and dignity, especially for home based and small workshop makers who usually fall through the cracks of traditional supply chain oversight.
[00:00:48] Anna: Sara spent years living and working directly with artisan communities in places like Varanasi, India, and she has a background with the Peace Corps in West Africa.
We wanted to talk with Sara because supply chains are something most of us interact with every day when we buy clothes, furniture, gifts, art. But we almost never really see or understand where these things come from. It’s like magic. Ooh, look, let’s buy it. Sara’s work at Nest is all about what it looks like to design systems that center people. It works at intersection of ethics, compliance, logistics and real world commerce. In plain English, she helps translate quote, we want to do business better into supply chains that actually make that possible.
So impressive. This bio is amazing. Okay, Janel, I know you can see.
[00:01:37] Janel: Why I was so excited to have her on. So to kind of launch us into our interview for listeners who have never heard of Nest or even maybe thought much about supply chains before. What is Nest and what made you feel called to do this kind of work?
[00:01:50] Sara: Yeah, well, thank you both for having me and just excited to be on the podcast as well. So going into Nest. Nest is a not for profit organization that’s based in the US but we work with artisan businesses globally and we have a network of over now 3500 businesses. And so that network is a free membership group that any artisan business can join. The organization, I would say in the most simple terms is now split, split into two different sides. One is we, we do a lot of work philanthropically supporting those artists and businesses on developing, growing, strengthening their businesses, getting market access, really expanding their, you know, reach as a business, but ultimately then to support more artisans in their communities that they work with. And then on my side of the organization, we really work around supply chains as was mentioned earlier, and looking at ways that space specifically in informal homeworker artisan supply chains, we can help brands and those within those supply chains have improved production around those things that are made. Your apparel, gifts, home goods, all of that.
[00:03:02] Anna: Is there a story or a moment that is another way to describe what Nest does and why it exists, like a specific artisan or partnership that really stuck with you? I’d love to hear this work in action.
[00:03:15] Janel: Yeah.
[00:03:15] Sara: I think one of the best examples I can give is we started working with a particular business based in India, and they are a factory based in and around Delhi. So they’re a major manufacturer of goods, and they were making quilts. The pieces are made within the factory, but then those pieces are sent out of the factory, down through several hands, set of hands, to get down into these communities where the quilting work is traditionally done. So these communities have women who have been over probably decades, if not centuries, been quilting those pieces of fabric together. And then those quilts all make it back to the factory and then onward to the US or elsewhere where you buy them in the store. And so that factory, you know, the physical distance, but I would say even the psychological distance away from those workers was quite extreme. And I think by car, it take five, six, seven hours, depending on traffic. But also, just historically, it’s been a very transactional relationship. You know, I’m going to give you an order. You finish the order, I pay you, and we see each other the next time we see each other. But when we started working with this business, their task was to really go into those supply chains deeper, get into those communities and really create relationships and trust with them. So you can imagine, you know, people working in Delhi, where you have access to all the amenities of business and commerce. And then when you go deeper into these other communities, you’re working with individuals in their homes who probably are rarely visited by anyone from the outside to talk about their work, to ask, how are you doing? How are you paid? You know, are you kind of doing these work in a safe way in protecting your family, protecting yourself and your communities? And so when we started working with them, I think the task of doing that was probably quite daunting, to establish people in those communities, to go travel back and forth or to live even closer within the communities and then work with them day to day. But after several months of working with them, I think they started seeing that the women were so responsive and happy that someone was coming to talk to them. And even though for probably many years they had been working and making these products, no one was really seeing who they were or acknowledging that they were part of that process. And without them, there may not be these quilts. So they reported that back to me, and they were just like, it’s just interesting when I go into the field and I see these workers, they come up to me and express how happy they are. And so I think that really touched me because I was like, those are the people who need to see that first. Right. Are those working with those communities, if not, then eventually to brands and to consumers who buy those products. But really starting at home, you know, where those products are made.
[00:05:59] Janel: It sounds very relationship centered, human centered work, which is not what comes to mind. When I think about supply chains, I immediately think shipping containers. I guess as somebody who doesn’t work with this. Right. And it. I would have imagined before talking with you that it would have been something very like quantitative, purely quantitative in nature, that we’re just looking to optimize the numbers. But what you’re talking about is something that is very like story based, human based, a lot more relational.
[00:06:29] Sara: Yeah. And if I can put a term out there for those who may not be familiar with supply chains of this type of work, but the kind of realm of which we work is what we call social compliance in industry. So it’s, you know, there is that transactional or more shipping container related, you know, bottom line making production timelines, all of that. That is of course happening there and that will always be happening. But what we’re looking at specifically is what we call social compliance, which is looking at the Social Security side, the human side, and the people who are making those products. And that’s something that happens at factories and in every kind of step along that supply chain. So it is a lot more about those relationships and building trust building. Another term we use so much is the word transparency. But that is to be able to like understand who those people are, where they are, what they’re doing, how they’re engaging with the supply chain. And that’s really what we aim to do.
[00:07:27] Anna: Did Nest come up with the term social compliance?
[00:07:31] Sara: No, that has existed for a long time. Yeah. And I would say it’s kind of a portion of looking at due diligence. If you kind of put that umbrella of just like responsible sourcing, social compliance would be a part of that.
[00:07:45] Anna: And asking. Because responsible sourcing is a phrase that we hear all the time and it’s almost lost its meaning.
I hear social compliance and I’m like, oh, I kind of get it and I want it.
[00:07:57] Sara: Yeah, right.
[00:07:58] Anna: It’s not for people who don’t work in supply chains. It’s not overused. It feels like it has more meaning, at least to me. This person outside of the industry, on.
[00:08:07] Janel: One hand You’ve got bigger corporations or retailers looking for uniformity or efficiency. And then you’ve got these makers that maybe aren’t used to performing on that level or can’t or don’t want to. So you’ve talked about Nest being a bridge between these two.
[00:08:23] Sara: How do you do that? Yeah, that’s a really important part of the work we do. You know, we kind of are working between these two spheres. One is to support the artists and businesses. The other is to work with the brands to strengthen their relationships and their supply chains. And that piece is a really important one for brands to understand what it is like in reality to source from artisan businesses. And to your point, I think there are some that are just simply never going to work with the major retailers that we all know because they don’t want to meet capacity or they don’t want to work at that speed. For those who can and do, it is really important that the brands are educated around lots of things, I think, starting from the design process, like how to design into an artisan product, not only to make sure it goes smoothly, but also because you can do lots of things when you do it by hand versus machine. Then it comes down to the ordering and the relationships. Most artists and businesses we work with don’t have a huge budget. And so payment terms become an important part of the sustainability of those businesses. To get money up front for the orders that they have. Or when it comes to quality, making sure that the brands understand that the quality is going to kind of vary. It’s going to have what we call defects as effects. So it’s going to have inconsistencies in what those artisans produce. And so I think as long as brands are willing to kind of accept that and work into it, maybe changing their production cycles for those that they work with that are artisanal kind of ordering maybe a little bit in advance that they would otherwise with a factory, things like that, little steps can really help those relationships.
[00:10:00] Janel: And are you the ones who are like helping each party kind of navigate those relationships and saying, hey, if you make these little adjustments, then you’re going to meet each other in a place that’s mutually beneficial?
[00:10:10] Sara: Yeah, we often do that. And when a brand does come looking to us to connect them for sourcing opportunities, that is certainly a role that we play. And some businesses come willing and ready and have experience doing that. So they may need less. But definitely for those who are newer, it’s really something that we can support with. And from the social compliance side, I think it’s similar in that factories for now at least 20, going back maybe 30 years. The idea of auditing and verifying the conditions for workers has been an accepted and also very understood part of the production. Whereas doing that in these deeper levels, like example, for example, with the quilters, that’s something very new. And those parts of the supply chain have never been asked to do that. So a brand can’t come in thinking everything’s going to be in place and ready to go. And that’s where we actually designed our program to start with training first, so we actually support the businesses and just first understanding the expectations that a brand is going to have, but then working with them closely to really look at their supply chains and help them identify ways that they could realistically integrate those practices into the supply chain. And then we work with them for a period of time supporting, giving guidance, you know, kind of pre evaluating the work that they’re doing before they’re ready to actually have more of a formal review or evaluation of that. So. So that really, I think, helps motivate everyone rather than just coming in and if you started just with the evaluation and say, oh, they don’t have anything in place, that’s a little demoralizing. And we’d rather work from the place of, hey, we’re going to all work together and get to the place that we want to be.
[00:11:51] Anna: So I love this because, I mean, your job at Nest is to help the companies whose mission is to like fair sourcing, blah, blah, blah, like actually do it and do it well and do it right.
And something that a little bit ago you said that the defects as effects.
[00:12:10] Sara: Right.
[00:12:10] Anna: I love that turn of phrase because. So my partner is an artist, she’s a ceramicist.
And there’s pieces where she’s like, oh, you can see this tiny little thing. And I’m like, that doesn’t make it bad. That makes it human made. Like I, when I go shopping, I like finding the pieces that are like, you can tell someone’s hands put it together. And to me, that’s a huge effect. Right. It’s like someone made this and now I get to wear it or use it. And like, you can see the supply chain visibly in that effect.
And that brings me a lot of joy as a consumer. And so hearing that you’re helping companies make that joy happen for more people makes me really happy.
[00:12:56] Sara: Yeah, it gives it character. Right?
[00:12:59] Anna: Yeah. Janelle, I know you had a question.
[00:13:02] Janel: Yeah. Nest operates globally, right?
[00:13:04] Sara: Yes.
[00:13:06] Janel: So world’s a big place, lots of cultures Lots of ways of doing. I imagine that this challenge of being a bridge between bigger retailers and smaller artisans is like, unless fathomably complex because there’s almost an infinite amount of ways that people do things.
And I like, I’m trying to imagine what your playbooks look like and they, they’ve got a million pages a piece to like cover. How, how do you, how do you navigate that? That, that every situation has the complexity of humanity at its center?
[00:13:46] Sara: Yeah, that’s a good, a good way of putting it. The humanity at the center. And I would say that for the social compliance work we do, the core and the foundation of that program is a standard. So it’s a list of the more formal, boring list of all the things that you need to do. Whenever we go to a new business and a new supply chain and our team trains them on these expectations, the way that we present it to them or approach it is to say this is the end goal. This is where everyone is looking to get to and to achieve. But how you get there may be different. And so as I, as I mentioned earlier in that first example, you know, there’s this centralized entity that was the factory in Delhi and then they have these kind of tiers below them that go all the way down to the workers. In those cases, you know, that entity is the one that’s going to hold the main responsibility of this program. And sometimes it’s a factory, sometimes it’s, it’s more of a traditional artisan business, like a cooperative. It could be smaller, but still that business is the one that’s really going to adopt this program into their operations. And though NEST is supporting them and giving them this really in depth consultation, it’s up to them to bring it into their supply chain.
And we do that because first of all, we don’t want those businesses to necessarily be dependent on nest. But as well, they’re the ones in that community, in that culture, they speak the language. So while we go with them and we visit and we talk to people all together and during our assessments we do the same. The work of kind of putting those systems into place is something that we kind of put to them in the way that it makes sense for them, it feels good for them, it feels comfortable for them. So it’s us bringing them the goal to reach and the support they need to get there. But in terms of how they structure it and how they eventually bring that to the necessary people along that supply chain is up to them. And to do that in a way that fits in with that culture. So I think, in a way to say it’s very adaptable to meet all of those different approaches, because you’re right, it is very different. In each case, I’m reminded of something.
[00:15:59] Janel: That we talked about over coffee that kind of stuck with me about one of the ideals that you help people kind of implement is keeping track of how things are produced and in what quantities and how are they sold, keeping good records. And it’s just a very vivid image of somebody implementing that with, like, a handwritten notebook that then was washed away and like flooding.
[00:16:24] Anna: Yeah.
[00:16:24] Sara: During a typhoon.
[00:16:26] Janel: Right.
[00:16:27] Sara: Which happens.
[00:16:27] Anna: Yeah.
[00:16:29] Sara: And, yeah. When we. When we work, imagine Southeast Asia, there’s a lot of natural disasters and weather that can impact things. But, yes, doing compliance at this level in Delhi, you might have resources like computers and the latest technologies, but as you go deeper and deeper, there are these kind of tiers that I was talking about. We call them subcontractors, and they have different names depending on which supply chains you go in. But for the function, they are the ones interplaying between the central business and ultimately the workers that we’re getting to. They don’t always come from a background of being business educated or that they have a staff or computers or a team. And even in some cases, they might not have formal education. They can often be artisans themselves, who then have just kind of raised themselves up and now are managing a group of their neighbors in their community to coordinate production. And so when we work at that level, we do have to work around those challenges, including the fact that records will still probably be kept by pen and paper, and people’s handwriting then becomes very important that we can read it. And it’s clear going back to that idea of transparency. So while I think that the standards that we have and the goals that need to be met are not that hard when you think about them. I think all of these things are the factors that make it challenging, because you have people who may not be keeping those records even by pen and paper at the moment, so they need to start that habit. Or you have people who may not even be literate and they’re now having to keep some type of documentation. And how do you manage that? So I think there’s a lot of different nuance. Social compliance at a factory is difficult.
It’s difficult in different ways at this level, too. So that’s what our program is really looking at. How can we provide those businesses with resources, or I would say, even kind of sharing best practices that we’ve learned over the years? Of how they can approach those challenges and try to navigate them, you kind.
[00:18:30] Anna: Of touched on it for a hot second. But thinking about the diversity of folks that you work with in terms of what they’re making with their hands, how they track it, literacy, access to a lot of different things, to me, coming from this is a work that’s very deep in compassion, right? Of meeting people where they’re at and finding ways to help everyone succeed and the goals that they have. So, you know, supply chains can be cold and calculating, and NEST is like, they shouldn’t be.
So how does the idea of compassion play into how you think about supply chains and how supply chains can run and are run or maybe should be run?
[00:19:18] Sara: Yeah, I think it ties in a lot to what I was just saying. To your point, I think that the compassion comes with understanding that those are the challenges. And I think for a lot of us, we’re on this call, we’re all in our homes and we’re closer to a life where we do have computers and things are easier and faster and quicker. But I think the compassion comes with understanding that those are not only humans, but they’re people who might have different challenges to be able to kind of accomplish what, you know, a brand or nest, in terms of our standards are saying should be the benchmark for what we see in social compliance. And at this point, I’m not even so much talking about workers, right? Workers are the ones kind of being impacted by these things, but it’s those intermediaries that I discussed between the businesses and then those workers, like, they’re the ones really holding a lot of that responsibility to make sure that these practices are put into place. So I think even, you know, I had worked within these supply chains for a long time, and then coming into it from a social compliance standpoint, it’s like, okay, now you have to do these things because we need to meet government regulations. But I’ve had a lot of brands really working closely with the nest in a way that’s like, we’re going to look for continuous improvements. We’re not expecting change overnight. We’re going to do it with support, rather than just this more paternalistic, you need to do this thing and get it done, and that’s it. I’ve seen a lot of shift in the industry toward more collaboration and mutual understanding, I would say. And then I think brands are seeking organizations like Nest who have that different approach. And it’s funny because as I said at the very top, Nest is a not for profit organization. And we’re now 20 years old. We didn’t start this work until maybe halfway into our life of an organization. And so we never set out to be a compliance organization or a supply chain organization.
We kind of fell into it organically because there was this need to bridge that gap between the two and I think to make it more human. But we came into it a little naive, I will say, but in a good way, because then I think we didn’t come into it with this historical. Like, this is how it’s done, and this is how it’s been done for 20 years, but more like, this is how it could be done and how we see it working really well. Knowing that these artisan supply chains need a different approach and they need understanding. So I think in a way, it’s really helped us grow and to be a little bit different for the brands and also for the artisans that we work with.
[00:22:00] Janel: I think that ladders into, like, my riskiest question, which, if you would rather not go here, you let me know. One of the things that’s on my mind when I think about people with power and privilege coming into spaces that have less is colonialism. Right. And squeezing places for their local resources.
What does it mean to build a supply chain that’s not that that actually is equitable to all the people that are involved?
[00:22:25] Sara: Yeah.
I think the philosophical part of social compliance has always been a core to what we’re doing. And I remember when we started creating the standards, our CEO, Chris and I, we meticulously went through every single standard and had conversations with a committee of brands that were supporting us. But it’s like, how do we do this in a way that doesn’t destroy those, you know, that. That community or that relationship, but really also brings them and elevates them up? So certainly something to think about. I would say that for us, the way we look at it to be equitable is.
I talked about the word transparency before. I think that’s the start of just like, who is even in the supply chain. And that’s not even being equitable at that moment, but that’s at least setting the ground to go deeper. It is like, who’s here?
What are their names? Where are they located? What do they do? And that’s often something that is not done. It’s. Or it’s not documented. It might be informal, but it’s almost, I would say, very rarely something that exists when we come into a new artisan supply chain where that’s been something formalized that, like, I know where everyone is And I know what they do. So I think going then beyond that, once a business can say, I know who’s making my products, then it goes into, like, the core of what we developed the program to be, which was it was to educate the artisans and the workers. I think you can’t really have protections if the artisans or workers don’t know what they’re being protected from or for. And so I think one of the core pieces of our program and goes back to the real core of what NEST is as an organization, was to provide those tools for the workers to be educated.
And then once they’re educated, then they know, what does the word minimum wage mean? And what is the minimum wage in my country? And am I earning minimum wage, and am I supposed to be earning minimum wage? And it gets to those questions of, like, what is it that I deserve to earn or to be? And I think historically and even today, I go into some supply chains and the idea that someone’s working from home, it’s kind of thought of as like, oh, that person is just earning some extra income for their family. And it’s not serious work. But why not? I mean, it is work that is being done. And maybe it’s only being done 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week, but it’s still important to the supply chain. So I think when we talk about equity, it’s really looking at first recognizing and acknowledging those workers, then bringing to them this layer of education and awareness for what they’re doing and that there’s a system around them to not only protect them, but to then elevate their work and what they do. And so, for just a very quick example, next year, we’re looking to really dig in deeper to what we call our worker voice program. And how can we educate these businesses we work with to bring more opportunity for workers, not only just to report if something goes wrong. That’s really a core part of our standard. But even before that, how do you get workers to be more participatory and have a voice into the work that they’re doing and how to, like, be more of a community, even if they’re not in one central place? So I think it’s really looking at bringing workers into the conversations around the work rather than just being people who earn money and do the work.
[00:25:51] Anna: What I like about what you said was in a lot of situations, all too often when you’re looking at going off of the language Janelle use, right, this colonialism, paternalistic, top down, oh, let’s help these Folks rise up.
[00:26:09] Sara: Right.
[00:26:09] Anna: It’s a lot of white saviorism that happens. So usually that looks like we’ll just educate them and our job is done. But what I really like about what NEST is doing is that you’re also. It’s both sides education.
[00:26:23] Sara: Right.
[00:26:23] Anna: And I think that’s where a lot of the equitable practices come in, where you’re not only educating the artisans, you’re educating the companies of why this is important, who they actually are. They’re not just like numbers on a page of like, we have X amount of people sewing quilts.
[00:26:35] Sara: Right.
[00:26:36] Anna: This is who they are. They’re actual humans. This is what the process looks like. And it’s coming from both sides. And I really appreciate that.
It’s not just top down, it’s across both channels.
[00:26:51] Sara: Yeah. And I think then it like brings a level of responsibility across the that plane too. I mean, the workers, maybe not as much the responsibility, but, you know, it’s maybe a self responsibility. But then you have all of those people in between that that are important to make sure that the work and the practices get down there.
[00:27:12] Anna: Yeah. And it’s not just up to the workers to advocate for themselves because they have the least amount of power in this situation.
The least amount of power, no matter how you slice it. And you’re creating a more equitable power dynamic through the practices that you are doing. Is that fair to say?
[00:27:28] Sara: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
[00:27:30] Anna: Okay. Sweet. All right.
[00:27:32] Sara: Ana, you see why I was so excited to talk to Sarah.
[00:27:34] Janel: Like, I just think that this work is so cool. And before I talked to her, I had no idea anybody was doing it. I just thought, well, it sucks out there. I guess that’s the way. I wonder if we’ll ever improve. But there’s people doing work to make it better and doing it in a really thoughtful, complex, human centered way. And I think that’s the coolest.
[00:27:54] Anna: You know, this makes me think that the labels like fair trade, equal exchange, that get slapped onto things, especially like chocolate. How does your work compare or look differently than those certifications?
[00:28:10] Sara: I think one big difference at the core is that we are looking at a different part of the supply chain than the ones that you mentioned. Fair trade is looking at the factory level generally, and then we’re looking at beyond the factory. And so, you know, I do look up to a lot of the other standards that are out there, and I think they’re all trying to do equally good work. We work with them as peers and really try to understand again what’s happening in the current Space around social compliance. How can we make it better and do better? I think it’s all quite similar in terms of the goals and maybe the differences there of either what they’re looking at or where they’re looking at those things within the supply chain. But that’s where we really wanted to kind of plug in. And when we started building our standards, we did look to fair trade especially is the one. I can call it that. Like, you know, we respected the work that they do, still do.
And we really look to kind of frame our work in a similar way of how we approach and work within the supply chains. And then just looking at the fact that we’re working deeper within that, but our work can really plug into where that work ends so that there’s a more holistic coverage of the supply chain.
[00:29:26] Anna: I’m really glad I asked that because it’s a, you know, it’s like certified organic. Everyone knows what that means. Right. Fair, equal exchange, fair trade. Okay. No one knows what certified organic means. Never mind. Janelle just shook their head.
[00:29:37] Sara: They’re like, no, Well, I think that’s.
[00:29:39] Anna: Maybe I just know what it means.
[00:29:40] Sara: I think that’s where I’m not going to say every standard is great or every label is great, for sure. But I think that’s where it comes down to consumer awareness and education too. Right. And I think there’s a lot of companies trying to bring more accessible information about those so that it is a little bit clearer. But I think that’s a challenge. Right. That’s always been the communications challenge. The other way, you know, towards the end consumer and how they don’t get drowned in too many labels on the products.
[00:30:10] Anna: Yeah. I mean, it’s kind of like the work that you do at Nest. You don’t allow companies to do practices like greenwashing is the thing that comes to mind. Right. They just slap a bunch of green stuff everywhere and it’s like, it’s eco friendly.
Right.
They can’t do that with the products that you help them source.
[00:30:31] Sara: Right.
[00:30:32] Anna: You make them fulfill that promise.
[00:30:34] Sara: Exactly. So they need to have that.
[00:30:36] Anna: They can’t just slap it on as like a PR stunt.
[00:30:39] Sara: Yes.
[00:30:40] Anna: Like we’re gonna do this, right.
[00:30:41] Sara: Yeah.
[00:30:42] Anna: I love it.
[00:30:42] Sara: Yeah. And that’s where I like, the third parties certainly come in. So if it’s a company saying on their own that they’re doing something, maybe they are, maybe they’re not, it’s hard to tell. But if it’s a third party that’s going in and doing some type of verification, at least as a consumer, then you can see what’s behind that. Our standards are publicly available. So anyone could go there and see what does it mean for this business to be certified and see that. So. And then environmental side is of course even different. When you get into. You mentioned chocolate and all of that, you know, are we. Is the supply chain cutting down trees? You know, there’s so many different things that labels are representing as well.
[00:31:19] Anna: The.
[00:31:20] Sara: Yeah, I go back to like the.
[00:31:21] Janel: Phrase of unfathomable complexity, like hats off.
[00:31:24] Sara: To you for being brave enough to.
[00:31:27] Janel: Look at it and try and put systems around it, like at strange birds. A phrase that we repeat a lot is simple systems for complex work. I’m not even sure your systems are simple. It’s complex systems for complex work to respect how human it is at the center. So kind of in that vein, what could those of us who are running smaller businesses that are also values driven, human at the heart, what do you think maybe we could learn from the way that NEST designs systems?
[00:31:54] Sara: Well, I mean, we’ve said the word human so many times and I think that was really a core when we developed this partly out of naivete, as I said, but I think really part because the way we had developed all of our programs to date at that point were really human centric. And I think it comes down to understanding who you’re working with and working for. And in this case, NEST came into developing a standard simply because we had had at that point about 10 plus years working physically like in these supply chains and in these communities. And so not to say it was easy task to make standards, but it was easy for us to understand where we needed to bring the two sides together, both from the brand, saying this is what we need either for our own business to feel good about the production we have, or the government regulations to be met, et cetera. And then from the other side, here’s what was really realistic to ask a business that is based in another country and all of those factors that I mentioned earlier. So it was really, I think, really critical that we had that experience. And I think if we had just come in never working at that level, there’s no way we could design it in an effective way. Yeah, it is still a little complex if you look behind the curtain, but I think now it makes sense. And when I work with my team and as we evolve the standards, we’re actually working on a revision to the standards right now. So every few years we have to look at it, kind of bring it up to the current evolution and how it would be industry norms or industry expectations. But I always say to my team, like what is the intent behind the standard? And if that intent is no longer needed, I don’t want there to be a requirement that says you have to do this just so there’s a piece of paper. What’s the point?
You know, it’s like we want the intent to be something that impacts somebody in that supply chain. We really want it to be something that’s necessary and not just paper for the sake of paper or systems. For the sake of systems too.
[00:34:05] Anna: So it has been an absolute delight chatting with you. Is there anything you would like to share with the audience or promote or direct folks to if they were like, I want to learn more, I want to do something.
[00:34:19] Sara: Yeah, for sure. Well, one thing I will say is iness is turning 20 next year. So it’s our, it’s a really big milestone birthday for us. We’re so excited and it’s been birthday. Thank you. Incredible to see. When I started Nest, which is now like about 15 years ago, it was teeny tiny and it has now grown and evolved. So it’s really exciting to see that. And as part of our anniversary, we’re going to be launching a new program that we have which is our Nest verified handcrafted program. So we’ve just talked about social compliance and the very complex program behind that. This is a much, I would say less complex program but really so squarely related to the work we do, which is. You mentioned greenwashing earlier. Basically we’ve as a third party developed a way to really define and determine whether a product is considered handcrafted or not based on how it’s made. So less about the people who are making, but how they’re making it. And so there’s again been a lot of businesses using artisanal, handmade, all of these terms on products, but this one is the term handcrafted and being able to look back at how products are made and with the idea that that can help uplift people who are making and spending more time to make, you know, your partner making the ceramics and you know, not just doing it in a mold in a factory and really putting their hands on that. So that’s something really exciting for us to launch next year. And you know, it will have a, we talked about labels, it will have a, you know, consumer facing label. So you would be able to see that on product home. Hopefully consumers who are really interested in buying handcrafted products can look to that and be able to know with assurance that that’s a handcrafted item.
[00:35:59] Anna: Well, when that label goes live, please let us know. And listeners keep an eye out in 2026 for certified handcrafted. Is that the name?
[00:36:08] Sara: Verified Handcrafted?
[00:36:10] Anna: Yes, Verified Handcrafted.
Thank you so much. It is such a pleasure to meet you. I know Janelle already got to so I feel jealous, but that’s part of.
[00:36:20] Sara: Our smart when you have a.
Lovely to meet both of you. I think I told you a little.
[00:36:26] Janel: Happy like this gave me such a Great excuse to meet somebody that I.
[00:36:31] Janel: Just found online and was like oh, you’re doing Flying the Coop is brought to you by Strange Birds, a strategic messaging co op for businesses who care loudly. From websites to onboarding flows, launches to long term strategy. If you want your brand offers an experience to tell the same story, we can help.
Find us at Strangebirds.Land.