The Fair Labor Association believes that all goods should be produced fairly and ethically, and brings together three key groups: business, civil society organisations, and colleges and universities to find sustainable solutions to systemic labor issues.

The mission of the Fair Labor Association is to combine the efforts of  to promote and protect workers’ rights and to improve working conditions globally through adherence to international standards.

Fill power is a measurement used to quantify the ability of down to resist compression, known as its loft. The higher the fill power, the more space the down occupies and the more effective it is as an insulator. Higher fill power down is hard to source and therefore expensive, it does however offer significant weight savings for gram-counting alpinists.

In the outdoor industry fill powers tend to start at around 650 and currently go up to 850 (900 does exist but is rare and mostly needs to be 'handplucked' from live birds). The down's origin is also sometimes given, most 'European' down comes from Hungary and the Ukraine and tends to be better quality that Chinese sourced down. The species may also be given but is not strictly speaking informative. The best goose down will outperform the best duck down, but good duck down will outperform poor goose down.

In addition to the fill power figure, there is sometimes a percentage quoted, eg '85% down' or '85/15 down'. This refers to the ratio of pure down to small feathers used. Higher feather percentages tend to be found on less technical products where down is padded out with feathers which cost less and offer more rigidity to compensate for the lower loft, however almost all products contain some feathers to increase the durability of the down.

In the past a number of different competing systems were used to measure fill power. Today almost all outdoor manufacturers use the International Down and Feather Bureau's testing method (sometimes known as the US method). This involves pre-conditioning the down being tested with steam, which gives the best consistency for test results. It is then placed in a cylinder and stirred to maximise its loft, before its volume is measured in cubic inches after being compressed by an ounce weight to give the fill power.