How we view fashion and sustainability

There is no way to sustain our current fashion system, so sustainable fashion cannot exist within the industry today.

The materials we frequently use and wear are depleting the planet, often even when coming to us with promises of being “natural”, “responsible” or “conscious”. Too, the energy our industry is fuelled with is far from green.

Materials matter. Hugely so. As a single impact category, raw material production is responsible for more emissions than any other in the industry, as much as 38%. This part of fashion is also most responsible for biodiversity destruction and a host of other environmental harms.

Materials matter. Hugely so. As a single impact category, raw material production is responsible for more emissions than any other in the industry, as much as 38%.

If we look at the data, and listen to IPCC recommendations and calls from leading scientists, it’s clear that a fashion industry which wants to exist in alignment with the Earth, limiting its impact on it as much as possible, must accept that the production of both fossil fuel-based and animal-derived materials must be moved beyond.

Within environmentally minded spaces, it’s generally easier to convince people of the first part. We’re facing ecosystem collapse, and as hard as BP tried to ensure otherwise, we know fossil fuel extraction is a dangerous foe we must be rid of. It’s the leading cause of the climate crisis and must be urgently phased out, as confirmed by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Less widely acknowledged, the IPCC also states that a switch to animal-free product alternatives would result in a “substantial reduction” of greenhouse gas emissions, and that methane emissions specifically—largely caused by animal production systems—have contributed 0.5 of our 1.1°C of global warming so far—with the global consensus being that we must work to curb warming before we reach 1.5°C. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has also long stated that farmed animal production is “one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems,” and that “urgent action is required to remedy the situation”.

Even despite this scientific consensus amongst leading experts, convincing people of the animal side of fashion’s required transformation continues to be much harder than that of oil-based synthetics. This is in large part thanks to fallacies of “natural”, and lobbying by industries which looked to the likes of Exxon’s cover-ups as inspiration, not something wicked.

The fallacy of ‘natural’

If something is “natural”, it’s derived from nature, the physical world around us, not made by we humans. Appeals to nature imply that if something is “natural” then it must be “good”, and vice versa.

But plenty of things fall into the “natural” and “bad” categories alike: deadly viruses that have killed millions of people, for example. When people argue that wool is “natural” and therefore “good” for fashion, they rely on this same premise, but they miss a few things. While it’s true that the hairs which grow off the bodies of animals are natural, and that sheep are raised outdoors in the environment, everything else about the wool industry is human-designed and controlled.

Domesticated merino sheep are the selectively bred descendants of mouflon, who have lost their naturally shedded, outer fur layer in place of an unnaturally thick wool layer which won’t fall out. In fashion’s wool production, the matter of which animals breed, which animals die, and which bloodlines continue are decisions designed by the industry for profit. These manipulated, commodified animals often stand on monopastural lands which were once full of abundantly biodiverse plant and animal life. Now it’s just green grass and sheep, and millions of them: 70 million in Australia alone, over one billion globally. This scale cannot be remedied by alternative ways of rearing sheep and this industry is eating away at natural lands because those numbers are far from natural.

Even on a smaller scale, this system requires far more land than any plant-based, cellulosic, or recycled fibre production system would. Also, the methane gas released into our atmosphere when over a billion sheep pass, sheep breathe, and belch has a devastating impact on our climate (small ruminants like sheep and goats are responsible for as many tonnes of carbon equivalent emissions as 103m cars driving throughout a year, with cattle responsible for far more), and on the natural world we want to protect.

Comparing annual small ruminant emissions to driving cars:

Land use comparison for one sweater:

We need to be driven by real-life impact, not by senses of what’s “natural” or what seems sustainable. Human invention may not be “natural” but it’s long existed, evolved, and helped the natural world, producing more land-efficient plant fibres, less resource-intensive dyes, and bio-materials which marry what’s natural and what’s invented perfectly for the benefit of the planet and us all.

While we need to move beyond inefficient and harmful material production, it’s not only about fossil fuels and animal production systems. We’ve also got deforestation for irresponsible cellulosic materials, toxic pesticides in many conventional cotton fields, dyes which render biodegradable fibres no longer so, and a dauntingly long list of other woes to work out.

We need to be driven by real-life impact, not by senses of what’s “natural” or what seems sustainable.

When people are surveyed on what environmental factors matter when they make purchases, they often speak about things like sustainable and recycled materials, durability, and a lack of hazardous chemicals used, but we don’t really hear about degrowth. We don’t often hear about it because it’s not something so easily sold or understood.

Degrowth

We keep viewing sustainability in fashion through a lens of “looking after the environment in the way that is most in line with economic growth”. But that’s a huge part of the problem because, among other factors, degrowth is a prerequisite to our ever being able to achieve “sustainable fashion”, and degrowth is about shrinking the fashion industry’s scale. It’s about decoupling financial growth from fashionable success. In fact, some experts suggest that the industry must reduce in size fourfold in order to stay within planetary boundaries. Perhaps not surprising when we’ve moved from a fashion industry with four weather-based seasons, to one with 52 micro-seasons; one for each week, if not more.

While these critical calls can’t be ignored, “shrinking” doesn’t sound very appealing. Reframed, degrowth is about allowing more space for longevity, for repairing, for caring for clothes. Degrowth in fashion production means flourishing natural environments and cultural re-engagement with fashion as a kind of creativity and not only of consumerism. It means the development of fashion, the transformation of industry from one which is linear—always taking and always throwing away—into one which is circular, constantly reinventing and innovating, not just extracting. A different, more nourishing kind of growth. Maybe we should talk about “regrowth” in fashion.

Reframed, degrowth is about allowing more space for longevity, for repairing, for caring for clothes. Degrowth in fashion production means flourishing natural environments and cultural re-engagement with fashion as a kind of creativity and not only of consumerism.

The work of environmental science towards more sustainable fashion is complex, as it should be, working for our magnificently complex Earth. We are faced with a complicated mass of different but interconnected environmental considerations and, as a result, our solution is neither simple, individualistic, nor singular. We can’t leave saving the planet to citizen consumers and their purchases alone; rather it must be a whole ecosystem of people, brands, and governments working collectively. There’s no use seeking one specific, singular answer to how fashion can be more environmentally responsible, no fruitful quest for the thing-that-will-fix-everything-even-if-we-did-nothing-else. Instead, the golden solution is looking broadly, holistically.

We need to address the major emissions tied to the scale of fashion, to fossil fuel production, the rearing of ruminants for leather, wool, and cashmere, and our industry’s energy production all at once. But we also can’t be locked into “carbon tunnel vision”, the dangerous way in which we sometimes strive for net-zero, for drastically reduced emissions, while ignoring biodiversity destruction, the polluting of soils, skies, and seas, how poverty, inequality, racism, speciesism, and classism contribute to our overarching environmental crisis. Essentially, we can’t fall into the trap of seeing sustainability as some island of a thing, when everything on our planet touches, interweaves, alters the others.

We need degrowth. We need clean energy. We need to change the materials we use, and we need to work towards these all together and simultaneously, in a broad and diverse web of people dedicated to life on Earth.

Ironically, much talk of sustainability and the environment lacks life. It lacks a connection to nature; to land, to insects, to animals, plants, and fungi, to who we are—the kind of connection which Indigenous communities have fostered and which we have, at best, ignored and fractured and, at worst, decimated. This is being remedied now, in large part by a growing chorus of young, Indigenous, Black and Brown people (often women) who are refusing status quo discussions of the environment which do not look at the whole. They recognise we don’t just need lowered emissions and more protected lands: we need climate and environmental justice, the unpacking of environmental racism, neocolonialism, objectification of individuals, and a western view of environmental abundance as nothing more than a richness of resources for profitable extraction.

The hyper-capitalistic, human-led fall of our natural world is not just a loss of resources, it’s a loss of life. And when we talk about life, we have to talk about ethics.

The post The Fallacy of Animal Rights v Plastic Apparel: Why We Need to Reframe Ethics in Fashion appeared first on Good On You.

Why avoid animal-derived materials in the first place?

When many of us think of animal-derived materials, we think of natural materials. Across the United States and Australia, most consumers believe that “natural” materials come from nature without harm to nature, but unfortunately this isn’t always true, and it’s certainly not the case for animal-derived materials.

Not only are materials like leather and wool often highly processed (standard chromium and formaldehyde tanning renders the former non-biodegradable, while wool scouring often results in massive amounts of water pollution), raising animals as commodities is inherently inefficient, harming the planet.

Enormous, potent methane emissions are associated with raising cows and sheep in fashion supply chains, while factory farming ducks and geese for down results in phosphorus emissions that can devastate surrounding aquatic ecosystems. All of these animals require more land to feed on (whether directly, or when soy meal is produced for factory farms) than would be needed to simply grow plants for eating and wearing, instead.

And of course, when we talk about animal-derived materials, we can’t forget to talk about animals themselves. Cows get excited when they learn new things, sheep recognise different emotions on the faces of their friends, and young ducklings show abstract thought. In the ways that matter most, humans and our fellow animals are the same: capable of thought and feelings, undoubtedly able to feel pain and seeking to avoid it. And yet, animal-derived materials exist by transforming individuals into objects through cruelty and ultimately, killing.

Plastic fashion isn’t the answer

Opting out of a long held societal belief that animal-derived materials are necessary and desirable helps the planet and all those living on it. But unfortunately, many of the widely available alternatives to these materials are made from fossil fuels. PVC and polyurethane synthetic leather, acrylic knitwear, and polyester jacket filling—they’re all plastic.

While it’s worth being aware that producing some synthetic materials actually has significantly smaller climate and other environmental impacts compared to materials like leather and wool, “less bad for the planet” is not the same as “good for the planet”.

Synthetic material production relies on the continued extraction of fossil fuels, something that we must move beyond in order to protect our planet. Did you know that fashion’s annual use of oil to make synthetic fabrics exceeds that of all of Spain?

Additionally, synthetic fibres don’t biodegrade (nor do natural fibres which have been processed or dyed with non-biodegradable substances) and if you put an acrylic or other synthetic sweater in the washing machine, it will shed synthetic microfibres that will flow into our waterways, contributing to the pollution of the ocean and life within it.

Moving past false dichotomies

Fashion can do better than both of these material types. While plenty of articles push clickbaity headlines debating whether animal or synthetic materials are better, we actually don’t need to choose either of them.

Fortunately, there are solutions out there, and a growing number of them. While your most sustainable option will always be wearing and caring for what you have, as well as shopping pre-loved, new and innovative materials offer exciting opportunities for better choices, too.

Plastic-free leather alternatives

Here are three of our favourite animal-free and plastic-free, “next-gen” leather materials:

MIRUM

This material is made from all natural inputs like rice hulls, coconut husks, charcoal, clay, latex rubber, plant-based oils, and waxes. Certified as made from 100% bio-content, MIRUM has a far smaller climate impact than both animal and synthetic leather alike, according to an early life cycle assessment.

Excitingly, when this material is no longer in use, it can be recycled into new MIRUM material, or it can eventually biodegrade.

Cork

Not all futuristic materials are made with new technology: sometimes we only need to look to nature to find fashionable solutions. When cork trees, or quercus suber, are harvested of their outer bark, it actually helps the tree to absorb and securely store more carbon from our atmosphere, rather than hurting them.

Cork is naturally water resistant, and when backed onto a material like cotton, can be used as a great leather alternative, able to be dyed and embossed into a range of finishes.

Washable paper

Another solution found amongst trees is washable paper. So long as this material is sourced with a certification that ensures no old-growth or native forest logging, this is a great option. Fast growing tree plantations can produce materials efficiently on a relatively small amount of land, and washable paper is water resistant, tear resistant, as well as nice to look at.

Some start-ups, like Biophilica, are further improving this material solution. The company’s material, Treekind, is a wood-based material made only from discarded and already dead wood. It is compostable at its end-of-life, too.

Plastic-free wool alternatives

If you’re worried that you won’t be warm without wool, let us tell you a little secret: according to fashion academic Dr Rebecca Van Amber, a big part of what keeps us warm isn’t what fibre we wear, but how thick and tightly knit that fabric is, so that wind and cold aren’t getting through.

When we’re seeking plastic and wool-free winter materials, here’s what we look out for:

TENCEL Lyocell

TENCEL Lyocell is a material made from wood cellulose, which means it starts out as a (responsibly-grown and harvested) eucalyptus tree. While some cellulosic materials are polluting, this one is made in a closed-loop, so solvents are recycled and reused, not released.

TENCEL Lyocell has similar thermo-regulation and moisture-wicking properties as wool, with a far smaller land footprint (helping protect biodiversity), and no associated animal cruelty or methane emissions. An even better version to look out for is TENCEL Lyocell with REFIBRA technology which is  made from a mix of wood pulp and textile waste as opposed to 100% wood pulp.

Hemp

You can’t go wrong with this classic, especially if it’s grown organically. Hemp gets softer and softer the more you wash it, while remaining hardy and long-lasting. This plant can be grown with minimal water and land, and when blended with responsibly-sourced cotton, it’s super soft, like wool.

Responsibly-sourced cotton

This category can include recycled cotton, cotton grown with more holistic management practices and that’s rain-fed, as well as certified organic (and Fairtrade) cotton. The beautiful cotton plant seems as though it were designed for wearing, transforming from fluffy bolls into fabric ready to be cosy in.

Keep in mind the stats on water consumption associated with cotton production vary widely, so while sticking to these more responsibly-sourced versions of cotton may improve sustainability in some regards, it is still up to your values and discretion when choosing brands to support.

Plastic-free down alternatives

Avoiding live-plucking, the feathers of slaughtered birds, and plastic alike might feel like a challenge, but it’s only getting easier. While companies like PrimaLoft offer commercially biodegradable synthetic, as well as totally recycled options, there’s one alternative that reigns supreme.

Flower down (FLWRDWN)

Created by PANGAIA, which has also made puffer jackets and a vest from the good stuff, this material is made from wildflowers which are made into a bio-polymer, thanks to an aerogel that is derived mostly from recycled paper. Life cycle assessment shows reduced global warming potential and energy demand to make this material, instead of a synthetic jacket filling.

This material does make use of a bio-polymer, which is a kind of plant-based plastic, but it’s totally biodegradable, insulating, and water repellent.

Kapok

Although not yet widely used, Kapok—a natural fluffy fibre that comes from the kapok seed pod—is being used more and more as a down alternative in things like pillows. Biodegradable and compostable, this filling is often used as a more health- and planet-friendly alternative to feathers and is worth keeping an eye out for in future.

The post A Guide to Plastic-Free Alternatives to Animal-Derived Materials appeared first on Good On You.

What is silk?

Local legend goes, Chinese Empress Xi Ling Shi (also known as Leizu) was sitting beneath mulberry trees on a fine 27th century BCE day, enjoying a cup of tea when a cocoon fell into her cup. As the fibres of the cocoon began to unravel in the hot water, the Empress admired the beauty of the shimmering threads. And so the story goes that the young royal invented the reel and loom, going on to teach the ladies of her court how to weave silk fabric.

Demand for silk established an ancient trade route through Asia, the Middle East, and Europe which became known as the Silk Road. While Chinese Imperialists kept their silk-making method a secret to maintain power over its value, by 550 CE two monks smuggled silkworm eggs in their walking canes, hobbling all the way home to Constantinople upon the orders of the Roman Emperor Justinian.

Today, the cultivation of silkworms for silk—known as sericulture—is a big business. No longer a secret, silk is spun from the long threads which make up the inner cocoon of a silkworm. The fibres are in fact saliva, produced by the worm to insulate itself until it is time to transform. After being pulled from cocoons, raw silk threads are reeled together for commercial use. China remains the largest silk producer in the world, followed by India, Uzbekistan, Brazil, and Japan.

Is silk sustainable?

Despite being dubbed a “natural” fibre, the sustainability of silk can vary based on how it’s processed, and by how sericulture facilities are fuelled. Silk is also an inefficient material to produce, with 187kg of mulberry leaves required to be grown as feed for silkworms in order to make just 1kg of silk. So many leaves and so much land for them to grow on means that the mulberry leaf farm practices tied to silk matter a lot to the overall material impact.

The processing of conventional silk generates high volumes of greenhouse gases due to the large amounts of manure and fertiliser required to grow mulberry leaves, and because coal is used to power a lot of the sericulture facilities, which require energy to maintain boiling water and steam for production. These emissions aren’t inherent to the material like methane emissions from wool are, and could be limited as renewable energy increases, and by changing farm practices.

What about the people in silk supply chains?

The silk industry provides employment to millions of people across the world, most of whom live in rural areas where job opportunities are limited. While sericulture has aided community development and lifted some people—particularly women—out of poverty, for others, it is the industry they are enslaved by. Sericulture can also be dangerous if safe working conditions aren’t provided.

Forced labour

The global silk industry is rife with human rights abuses. While this isn’t the case across the entire industry, with very few brands able to supply information about how their raw materials are made (and by whom), it can be virtually impossible to know which brands are tied to this serious problem.

The four most significant silk-producing countries are reported by the Global Slavery Index to be associated with high modern slavery risks. In Uzbekistan and India, for example, forced labour has been widely documented. Child labour is also documented across both countries, with children as young as 5 in Uzbekistan reported to work from 4AM until midnight picking mulberry leaves and tending to silkworms. In India, one report shared the words of 12-year-old silk weaver, Mehboob, who said that he had learned nothing else in his life. Without diligently-reported assurance that a brand is not using silk made with forced labour, it should not be assumed to be fairly made.

Painful work

The boiling water and hot steam silkworms die in also commonly cause serious burns on the hands of sericulture workers. These burns can lead to secondary infections like dermatitis. A report from Kashmir, India, showed health problems like back pain, respiratory issues, headaches, eye irritation, and other ailments to plague the majority of silkworm rearers.

If silk isn’t produced organically, and instead with the use of dangerous pesticides, further health issues can persist. Chemical exposure through pesticides, as well as during the processing and dyeing of some silks, can cause skin irritation and damage to organs including the lungs, kidneys, and liver. It’s for this reason that sustainable farming and dyeing practices—for all textiles—are closely linked with fair working conditions.

Silk’s impact on animals

Despite being called “silkworms”, the little critters inside the silky cocoons used to produce the fabric are caterpillars. These caterpillars would naturally metamorphose into moths, specifically the bombyx mori moth, in the case of domesticated species. This soft, white species makes up as much as 90% of global silk production, but a variety of other species are bred across Africa and Asia, too.

Note: The following section explores the impact of silk production on silkworms, but the sentience of insects is still being researched by the scientific community and Good On You’s own methodology does not treat silk in the same way as materials like leather and wool. However, a brand cannot achieve our highest score of “Great” for animals unless it is entirely vegan, so you might choose to steer clear of virgin silk if you prefer cruelty-free and vegan fashion.

Debates around insects and cruelty-free

Exploring the ethics of using silkworms for fashion is complex. While a growing body of evidence suggests that insects have complex cognitive capacities, research in the space is still developing.

Some cruelty-free fashion lovers choose to err on the side of caution and follow an ethical philosophy that aims to reduce suffering among all lifeforms.

So what happens to silkworms and moths in sericulture?

To spin their cocoon, silkworms spin their bodies in a figure-eight shape as many as 300,000 times over up to eight days. Naturally, moths would then break out the top of their cocoons after their transformation is complete, but this breaks the kilometre or so of silk filament they produce. So, in the silk industry, silkworms are either steamed or boiled alive inside their cocoons. To make just one kilogram of silk, as many as 5,500 individual silkworms are killed.

What about “ahimsa silk”?

The ancient Indian principle of “ahimsa”, commonly referred to as non-violence, is all about respecting living beings and avoiding injury and suffering. Ahimsa silk, also referred to as peace silk, is promoted as cruelty-free. However, “Ahimsa” silk moths are still discarded and crushed in bins after they are of use and kept in semi-frozen conditions until breeding season.

What’s more, the bombyx mori moth has been selectively bred for the sake of profit. These breeding practices mean that even if moths are free to leave their cocoons, they will never be able to fly or move properly, or even eat, and so are unable to live for long.

There are some types of silk derived from wild species. Muga, tasar, tussah, and eri silk textiles are made in India, where empty cocoons are collected from forests for use in fashion. But transparency in wild silk supply chains is limited, and some such silk is “free-range” rather than wild (where natural habitats are imitated in human-made facilities). Wild silk varieties are both rare and not as soft as the original and coveted mulberry silk, losing much of the allure of the material for many people.

The future of silk

While a number of alternatives to silk already exist today, a lot of them are synthetic and derived from fossil fuels. These materials—polyester being the most common example—are tied to hefty water use and microplastic shedding, and can take hundreds of years to break down in landfill. Instead, look out for vintage materials, recycled satin, increasingly common bamboo lyocell fabrics, as well as more innovative and plant-based materials like Naia Renew, a cellulose acetate fibre.

Silk alternatives made from rose petals and banana fibres are difficult to find, but similarly soft. Silks made from orange juice industry by-products are being created by Orange Fiber in Italy. Meanwhile, Bolt Threads—which also creates mycelium leather—has produced the first commercial spider silk. Despite the name, the company does not use spiders in the process, but was inspired by them. The thread is made from yeast, water, and sugar and produced through fermentation. This process is much like brewing beer, except instead of the yeast turning the sugar into alcohol, they turn it into the raw stuff of spider silk. It is worth keeping in mind how new these silk alternatives are to the market and that comprehensive peer-reviewed studies on their environmental impacts might not yet exist.

Read about more ethical silk alternatives

The post Material Guide: How Sustainable Is Silk? appeared first on Good On You.

Fashion’s use of wild animals

As most major luxury brands have moved beyond fur, “exotic skins” remain the most controversial used in fashion.

By saying “exotic skins”, the industry obfuscates the fact: these are the skins of wild animals who have not been domesticated. In fashion, wild animals commonly captured and factory farmed include foxes, raccoon dogs, minks, crocodiles, alligators, ostriches, peacocks, kangaroos, snakes, and lizards.

Crocodile skins are considered particularly luxurious by the fashion industry, used mostly in the creation of expensive handbags, wallets, and other accessories, as well as for some shoes. Extremely costly, the number of crocodiles (and other reptiles) slaughtered for fashion may be dwarfed by the number of bovine and other domesticated animals killed in fashion supply chains, but that doesn’t diminish the severity of the harm caused to animals, people, and the planet.

In Australia, where most crocodile skins used for luxury fashion are produced, many factory farms are owned by the luxury fashion industry itself. As a result, a select few multi-national brands are solely responsible for an enormous amount of suffering and harm. Bags made from crocodile skin are prohibitively expensive for most people, with prices ranging from tens to even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Let’s explore how crocodiles are factory farmed, how this impacts their wellbeing, and how they are slaughtered—before delving into the “conservation” arguments linked to the treatment of native crocodiles, their impact on natural ecosystems, the tanning of crocodile skins, and Indigenous perspectives on the commercial crocodile trade. Of course, it’s important to look at solutions, too, so we’ve outlined more just and sustainable alternatives to these skins.

The cruel crocodile skin trade

Because crocodiles are so dinosaur-like (they actually share lineage with dinosaurs, as they came from “archosaurs”, known as “ruling reptiles” who roamed the earth 250 million years ago), it can be easier to feel afraid of them than to connect with them like we would other animals.

But despite their hardened exteriors, crocodiles are sensitive, thinking, and feeling creatures like any other animal.

Crocodiles are known to enjoy playing together, within families they display strong maternal bonds, and they have highly developed social lives. They may be very different from some other animals, and from us, but in the ways that matter most, we’re all the same: sentient creatures, able to feel fear as much as joy, pain as much as pleasure.

Despite their scientifically proven capacity for sentience, crocodiles are subjected to immense cruelty and suffering for the sake of luxury fashion. Here’s what that looks like.

Factory farming an ancient species

The saltwater crocodile, or “crocodylus porosus”, is native to Australia and considered to have some of the most coveted skin in the fashion industry. Other crocodile species killed for fashion include the Nile crocodile, and a number of crocodilian species found across parts of Asia and America. Crocodiles may look the same way they did 200 million years ago, but the way they are treated in factory farms is a far cry from their natural environments.

Across the world, crocodile species in factory farm settings are confined to barren concrete pits and cages. In farms producing “cheaper” skins, crocodiles can be crammed together, packed on top of one another in these dank environments, whereas on farms aiming to produce “higher quality” skins that are free from scratches, crocodiles grow in individual cages. In both instances, gregarious crocodiles suffer mental anguish, denied their most basic natural instincts.

In Australia, where both Hermès and Louis Vuitton have bought their own crocodile factory farms in order to gain more control of their supply chains, it is claimed that “the highest standards for the ethical treatment” of these animals are met, and that local laws are followed. However, Australian codes of practice for the farming of crocodiles allows these reptiles to be confined to cages shorter than the length of their own bodies⁠—as little as 0.25 square metres.

While free, crocodiles travel up to 10km in one go, even surfing currents to travel hundreds of kilometres over their natural habitat in any given month. But when luxury brands provide crocodiles with a cage just longer than their own bodies, they are able to claim they provide a higher standard of care than is legally required. While technically true, such an environment is not conducive to crocodile wellbeing, as they are wild creatures that require space to roam.

Crocodiles are not bred into these factory farms, but captured from the wild before they have hatched out of eggs, while nests are left unguarded. These hatchlings are born into a totally foreign environment from the swampy, wetland ecosystems they have evolved to thrive in.

Killing crocodiles

Despite an average natural lifespan of 70 years old, crocodiles in luxury fashion house-owned factory farms are killed at just two or three years old⁠—at most, crocodiles live out less than 5% of their natural lifespan. Not only are decades of life stolen from these creatures, methods of crocodile slaughter in the fashion industry are particularly gruesome. Crocodiles across Vietnam, Zimbabwe, and the United States have been documented being skinned alive, before being turned into bags for brands owned by luxury fashion group LVMH. Workers have stated that it can take hours of suffering before crocodiles die, and other investigations have shown crocodiles dying as they are forcefully pumped full of pressurised air.

Even when following legal guidelines, crocodile killing is cruel. The recommended, legal method of slaughter for crocodiles is by first temporarily electrically stunning them, before they are shot in the head with a captive bolt gun. Then, the crocodile’s head is sliced open, and a metal rod is plunged into their brain, killing them. Blunt-force trauma killing is also accepted in many instances. These methods of slaughter prioritise the protection of the neck and underbelly skin, which are highly valuable.

Environmental impact of crocodile killing

The crocodile skin trade is not only cruel—it impacts the environment, too. This industry is wrapped up in a dark and complex history of species endangerment and extinction, and the alteration of natural crocodile relationships with their ecosystems, which would normally benefit biodiversity. Too, the tanning of crocodile skins is water-intensive and results in toxic pollution.

Why the “conservation” argument doesn’t add up

Siamese crocodiles across Asia were driven to the brink of extinction in the 1950s when the international skin trade expanded, and just two decades later, only 3,000 saltwater crocodiles were left in the Northern Territory of Australia. Fashion has a long history of driving animals to near and total extinction.

Following this near annihilation, crocodiles in Australia were granted protections to help save the species from extinction, and as a result, their populations healthily increased. At the same time, industry lobbying saw their protections under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) change, in order to legalise the factory farming and killing of the species. This lobbying was made possible, in part, by shifting public opinion on crocodiles, following a number of attacks. Public education relating to safe cohabitation practices between humans and crocodiles was relatively new then, and is now widespread.

Today, as a result of this move, more saltwater crocodiles live in concrete pits and cages owned by and supplying luxury fashion brands than live in their natural habitat in Australia.

Proponents of “trophy hunting” and crocodile farming alike argue that wildlife can be exploited and killed for the sake of their own conservation. Conservation aims to protect wild species and their ecosystems, yet the luxury fashion industry’s very treatment sends an utterly conflicting message that such native animals are not valuable alive. Removing the eggs of native animals⁠—who have lived on their land for at least 100 million years⁠—from their natural habitat in order to confine them to cages for profit is not beneficial to wildlife, their ecosystem, or the development of much needed improved human appreciation for wilderness.

Focusing on an economic basis for conservation which fails to address the wellbeing of the animals supposedly conserved is also out of alignment with growing calls for “compassionate conservation”, as popularised by experts like Dr Marc Beckoff. Conservationist Chris Darwin⁠—who is also the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin⁠—encouraged a just transition beyond the use of crocodiles in fashion, stating that he supports “compassionate conservation which not only looks at saving the species, but also looks at the integrity of their lives and the fact that they are living good lives.”

After viewing footage from crocodile factory farms supplying to Hermès and Louis Vuitton, Darwin continued, “this is an unacceptable way to treat any animal…the audacity to call this conservation when really it is just commerce, it seems ridiculous.”

How commercial slaughter harms biodiversity

Protecting native animals like crocodiles is a deeply important part of protecting the environment, and we must protect not only species populations, but individuals of these species, too.

When allowed to live in their natural habitat ecosystems, crocodilian species play key roles in protecting these environments around the world. Crocodiles are large predators, and their presence helps to balance broader animal populations, benefitting biodiversity. When wild crocodile populations have previously declined in the Philippines, for example, fish populations also declined drastically. Crocodiles are intensively farmed in some parts of the Philippines today.

Tanning crocodile skins is water intensive and wasteful

As with any other skins transformed into materials for use in fashion, crocodile skins must be tanned. Without tanning, all animal skins would rot; the process exists to make something organic (skin) inorganic (leather), so that products last a long time. However, this process can render skins non-biodegradable, even when vegetable-tanned.

Crocodile skins are tougher than other animals commonly used for leather, and as a result, a United Nations FAO states that vegetable tanning is generally not possible, with chromium being used instead. The vast majority of all leather is tanned with chromium, which is carcinogenic and dangerous when polluting natural environments.

The tanning process is also water intensive and wasteful, with gaseous, liquid, and solid waste being produced. Pollution caused by tanneries using this and other harmful substances can result in the contamination of waterways, negative health impacts for both wildlife and human communities, and the killing of plant life as well as decreased soil fertility.

The human impact of the crocodile skin trade

Indigenous communities and crocodiles

The crocodile skin trade and supporters of it continually attempt to use Indigenous peoples and their jobs within the industry as a justification for the continued killing of these reptiles, usually without amplifying any Indigenous voices. While Indigenous perspectives are not monolithic, as with any community, it’s important that these claims be balanced.

Australia’s commercial crocodile skin trade highlights the “livelihood benefits” they provide to Aboriginal communities in rural areas, though most of the profit from this system goes to non-Indigenous people. Aboriginal people are often employed in the egg-harvesting portion of the trade, which is extremely dangerous, given the potential for crocodile attacks from defending mothers. Payment of as little as $20AUD per egg is paid to these harvesters, while each skin from these crocodiles is made into products sold for tens of thousands of dollars.

Some Indigenous people are in support of Indigenous-owned crocodile factory farms, with community leaders advocating for their potential for job creation. Others consider decisions relating to trapping, relocating, and shooting of crocodiles⁠—even outside of their factory farming⁠—as complex, due to their totemic connections to the species. Jonah Ryan, for example, told the ABC: “I’m part of the crocodile, too. They are called Baru around Arnhem Land, and that’s my grandmother’s totem. When I was a kid, she used to tell me, ‘one day you get the right to decide what to do with the crocodile’.”

Totem animals are traditionally not killed, worn, or eaten by their people, but protected. For the Larrakia people in Darwin, the crocodile is their totem. Some Indigenous people, like Murranddo Bulanyi Yanner, support conservation tourism “green safaris” which do not needlessly kill crocodiles or put them in “prison”, but which allow people to take photos of the species in their habitat, supporting conservation and Indigenous communities alike. “It’s not just about money. We have a relationship with the animal, too.”

The fashion industry ties the value of crocodiles and their conservation to monetary gain, however, “cultural and intrinsic values can also form a strong motivation for poor people in non-western societies to conserve biodiversity.” For example, in Sierra Madre, a study exploring the flawed argument of conservation focusing on economic value showed that “respect for nature, interest in wildlife ecology, and pride in the occurrence and conservation of a rare and iconic species proved to be effective incentives to protect the Philippine crocodile.”

While Indigenous perspectives vary, the purely profit-driven view of crocodiles as commodities is out of alignment with traditional respect for animals as fellow beings on shared land.

Alternatives to crocodile skin

The intricate patterns seen on the skins of crocodiles can be appreciated and replicated without killing crocodiles themselves. Today, a range of completely animal-free and more sustainable materials can be embossed to mimic these reptilian patterns, including:

• Post-consumer recycled synthetic leather, certified with the Global Recycling Standard
• Partly bio-based alternatives to leather like mango leather
• Cork, stripped from trees without harming them
• Mycelium leather, which continues to become more widely available

As an increasing number of luxury fashion brands and fashion weeks ban the use of all wild animal skins, we’re sure to see more of these alternatives crop up, and crocodiles can be left to roam the wilds, as they have been for millions of years.

The post Is Crocodile Skin Ethical or Sustainable? appeared first on Good On You.

The reality of animal skins in fashion

Is it acceptable to kill animals for fashion? This is the question a new feature-length documentary asks the fashion industry, and all of us who get dressed each day. Exploring the use of fur, leather, and wool, SLAY looks at some of the environmental and human impacts the industries behind these animal-based materials cause. It also hones in on the exploitation of animals themselves, something often excluded from conversations of sustainability and ethics in fashion.

“We must reconcile ethics and sustainability as one and indissociable,” says Rebecca Cappelli, the film’s director. “We cannot accept complex equations for a definition of sustainability that omits the ethical treatment of living beings—humans and our fellow animals.”

We must reconcile ethics and sustainability as one and indissociable.

Rebecca Cappelli – SLAY's director

In other words, we cannot sustain injustice any more than we can sustain environmental degradation. That’s why at Collective Fashion Justice I coined the term “total ethics fashion”, prioritising the lives of all animals; humans and non-humans, as well as the planet, before profit. It’s also why this film—which I worked researching and part line-producing amongst a team of others—is so important.

“What should I wear instead?”

In a move beyond fur, leather, and wool, what should you wear? Of course, the most sustainable thing we can do is wear and care for the clothes we already have and shop pre-loved first.

But what about when you need to buy something new? Asking “what can I wear instead?” to the brands we love encourages them to think innovatively, and to move forward beyond animal skins and towards more ethical and sustainable materials. SLAY’s campaign hashtag #WhatShouldIWearInstead is growing, supported by a number of organisations, including Fashion Revolution, which first asked #WhoMadeMyClothes.

Near the end of SLAY, John Lau, Dean of Academic Strategy at the London College of Fashion says, “Alternatives are going to be the actual choice in the future. At the moment they’re alternatives because we’re still experimenting, but one day that will replace the actual leather itself, the actual skin itself, because we have moved beyond that alternative title… it becomes the norm.” So why is it so important we have alternatives to fur, leather, and wool? And what are some of the best alternative choices?

Fur

Fur is the animal-derived material most commonly recognised as cruel and unjust. Today, 95% of fur comes from factory-farms where wild animals are confined to wire cages. As a result, animals like minks, foxes, and raccoon dogs show clear signs of psychological distress; continually nodding their heads for hours, pacing their cages, and even self-mutilating. The slaughter of these animals is no less disturbing, killed by gassing or electrocution for the sake of fur coats and keyrings which we can replicate without such cruelty.

As explored in SLAY, fur is also unsustainable. Labelled as “natural” by the industry marketing them, in reality, fur pelts processed for fashion are chemically treated with similar carcinogenic substances to those used in leather tanning, do not effectively biodegrade, and have a far more harmful climate impact than even non-ideal synthetic alternatives.

So what can we wear instead?

• Recycled faux furs made from post-consumer synthetics, even those recovered from the ocean
• Partly bio-based faux furs like KOBA, which are part plant-based, and part synthetic
• GACHA, claimed to be biodegradable faux fur

While not all alternatives to fur are perfect, it’s important we see innovation as a continual process, with each material creation a stepping stone to an even more sustainable solution.

Learn more about fur and fur alternatives

Leather

Despite common misconception, leather is a valuable co-product, not a by-product of the meat industry. Leather supply chain traceability is very poor, meaning issues of forced farm labour and painful mutilation practices facing cattle are often unknown to brands themselves.

Buying leather means financially supporting slaughterhouses which kill and skin sentient animals like cows, and it also means funding environmental degradation. Deforestation risks tied to leather are high, and this land inefficient material also has a massive climate and water footprint. Too, the environmental and human costs of leather intersect at tanneries, where dangerous machinery and chemicals alongside unsafe practices cause major health risks to workers, and environmental pollution which hurts local communities. Important to note too, the tanning of leather generally renders it unable to effectively biodegrade.

So what can we wear instead?

• MIRUM, a plastic-free, 100% bio-based leather alternative
• GRS certified recycled polyurethane, making use of waste
• Partly bio-based alternatives like Desserto, VEGEA, AppleSkin, and Piñatex
• Cork, a natural and sturdy alternative
• Washable paper, certified deforestation-free

As innovation continues, more sustainable alternatives like those made from mycelium will become more widely available, and wholly bio-based or recycled alternatives will become more common.

Learn more about leather and leather alternatives

Wool

Often mistaken as a cruelty-free material, wool production involves the routine and legal mutilation of lambs, and exists as part of a slaughter industry. Explored in SLAY, winter lambing practices which prioritise profit over the wellbeing of lambs are also cruel, with as many as 15 million newborn lambs dying shortly after their birth each year in Australia alone.

While regularly referred to as “natural” and “sustainable”, wool must be processed at a scour in order to be wearable, and this process is often highly polluting. When scouring effluent pollutes surrounding waterways, some substances commonly used can even feminise fish, devastating aquatic populations. Like leather, wool also has a high climate footprint, and requires large swathes of land to produce little fibre.

So what can we wear instead?

• TENCEL Lyocell
• More sustainable and fairly sourced cotton, like GOTS certified organic cotton
• Hemp
• Recycled plant-based materials like cotton
• Recycled synthetic materials (though washing them in a Guppyfriend bag is encouraged)

More innovation in the wool alternative space is needed, but these materials are great options, alongside the best options of caring for what you have and choosing pre-loved.

As Bandana Tewari, former Vogue India editor-at-large and sustainable fashion advocate notes in SLAY, “The responsibility lies with both consumers and brands”. We have the power not only to vote with our dollar but to use our collective voices to call for change.

You can watch SLAY for free on WaterBear—a ground-breaking streaming platform showcasing hundreds of award-winning documentaries as well as original content—spanning biodiversity, community, climate action, and sustainable fashion.

The post What Do I Wear Instead of Animal Skins? Answers From the Experts in Documentary SLAY appeared first on Good On You.

What is kangaroo leather?

Kangaroo leather is the tanned skin of kangaroos, a native Australian species that is regularly and legally shot in a commercial industry by the millions. Kangaroo leather is considered to be soft, thin, and flexible as compared to cow skin leather. It is used for gloves, and most commonly, for sports shoes worn by football players around the world. Massive global corporations such as Nike, Adidas, and Puma still use kangaroo leather today, as do many others around the globe. While some may be unaware of the harm caused by their material choices, the fashion industry must dedicate itself to becoming far better informed about what its supply chains support.

It’s common for kangaroo leather to be labelled simply as “k-leather”, meaning some people are likely to purchase the skins without understanding what they are really paying for.

Concerningly, it’s common for kangaroo leather to be labelled simply as “k-leather”, meaning some people are likely to purchase the skins without understanding what they are really paying for.

The kangaroo leather industry sometimes claims to be a more ethical alternative to cow skin leather, as the industry shoots native, free-living kangaroos, rather than confining cattle to feedlots, or performing any cruel standard practices on them, as the cattle industry does. Too, the industry adamantly claims that shooting kangaroos is sustainable, going so far as to label the indigenous icons as “pests” which must be lethally controlled. As you’ll see, this is far from the truth.

Let’s talk about kangaroos

Kangaroos are a type of macropod species native to the land now referred to as Australia. These indigenous species have lived on the land for some 20 million years. The oldest intact rock painting in Australia is well over 17,000 years old, found in Western Australia on Wilinggin land, and depicts a large kangaroo.

Kangaroos live in matriarchal societies. Despite common misconception that frames kangaroos as rampant overbreeding pests, they are intuitive breeders which, when undisturbed, reproduce stably in relation to the state of their environment.

There are a number of different kangaroo species, with the Eastern Grey and Red kangaroo being most well known. Since European colonisation, six species in the macropod family have become extinct, and a number face serious risks today. Leading factors currently harming kangaroos are the leather industry which skins them; habitat destruction, and broader ecological crises.

Kangaroos in Indigenous cultures

Any conversation about kangaroo leather should include Indigenous voices, but they are too often left out of both the ethical conversations of animal rights activists and the profits of the commercial industry.

Kangaroos and their skins are used to fulfil a variety of roles in some Indigenous cultures. As the beliefs of Indigenous cultures are diverse and not monolithic, a wide range of historic and contemporary views on the issue exist. Some Indigenous cultures traditionally use kangaroo skins. One example of this use is the Booka, a cloak made of kangaroo skin and traditionally worn by the Noongar peoples of southwestern Australia. Meanwhile, some young Indigenous artists are continuing traditional Aboriginal cloak-making traditions using various kangaroo and possum skins.

It’s also important to note that traditionally and still today, kangaroos are a source of sustenance for many Indigenous people. Indigenous chef Clayton Donovan, for example, said to The Guardian: “these proteins, I don’t know how far we’d live without them”, describing the relationship as complex and often tied to traditional land management practices.

Conversely, some “Traditional Owners” recognise kangaroos within a totemic system, where different natural objects, plants, and animals are inherited by clans and families as spiritual emblems. Clan families are “responsible for the stewardship of their totem”. In this way, some Indigenous voices have spoken to the inherent rights of kangaroos as native animals, who now passed Elder Uncle Max (Dulumunmun) Harrison referred to as “the first Australians”.

It is colonialism that sees country as only something to gain a financial profit from—to be used, to be abused—and that sees kangaroos as a pest.

Aunty Ro Mudyin Godwin

Aunty Ro Mudyin Godwin is one of the most prominent advocates for her totem, the kangaroo. Aunty Ro reminds us that the commercial killing of kangaroos for leather and profit is a disrespectful and unjust symptom of colonisation:

“It is colonialism that sees country as only something to gain a financial profit from—to be used, to be abused—and that sees kangaroos as a pest… Current [government] are not just environmental vandals but they are engaging in the very same genocide upon kangaroos that was instigated upon we Indigenous people, the thylacine, and indeed the koala. This is their [and] my ancestral home… Every time one of these totemic animals is gunned down a part of myself—my family—dies.”

Unfortunately, the commercial kangaroo slaughtering industry largely disregards and excludes the concerns of Traditional Owners.

Is kangaroo leather sustainable?

Animal advocates argue a simple point: kangaroos are individuals worthy of respect. But it goes deeper than that. Kangaroos are also a key part of a critically important environmental factor: biodiversity. Biodiversity is the abundantly rich and diverse array of plants and animals on Earth, and without it, ecosystems cannot thrive.

Some proponents of kangaroo leather cite the fact that these skins have a far lower carbon footprint than cow skin leather, or that they are “natural” unlike synthetic alternatives (despite the tanning process rendering these skins inorganic and generally non-biodegradable). However, this can be considered a kind of “carbon tunnel vision”, where emissions are considered in isolation to other critically important environmental factors.

In reality, kangaroo leather production is harmful to kangaroos themselves, and the ecosystems which they are a part of.

The largest land-dwelling wildlife slaughter on the planet

The slaughter of kangaroos across their native land has been labelled as the largest commercial slaughter of any land-dwelling wildlife in the world. The Australian government, which permits this killing, describes the trade of kangaroo skins for leather as the “backbone” of the shooting industry, which brings in nearly $90 million per year.

The Australian government estimates that today, 34 million kangaroos live across Australia. In the last decade, a shocking estimated 31.5 million kangaroos have been killed by the agricultural industry which sells their skins and flesh as leather and meat, the latter often marketed as companion animal food.

The protection of kangaroos is critical: we cannot afford to lose any more species.

Kangaroo populations are in decline, according to Australia’s chief scientific body. But the Australian government still describes kangaroos as “pests”, providing licence to harm them. Since 2000, CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) states that as many as 42% of identified kangaroo populations have undergone an overall decline in abundance. By other accounts, the decline has even been more dramatic: since colonisation in New South Wales, kangaroo populations are estimated to have declined by 89%, according to data reviewed by ecologist Raymond Mjadwesch.

A growing number of scientists dispute claims made by the government that the commercial killing of kangaroos is “sustainable”. More Australian mammals have been driven to extinction than those in any other continent, and local extinction risks for kangaroos exist today. The protection of kangaroos is critical: we cannot afford to lose any more species.

Kangaroos and their role in the ecosystem

The ecological benefits of kangaroos as compared to farmed animals who are similarly skinned for leather have been used to justify opting for kangaroo leather over cow or sheep skins. However, such environmental benefits should serve as reasons to protect this native species, and to move beyond all animal skins to more sustainable, ethical alternatives.

Kangaroos support vegetation biodiversity and naturally participate in bushfire prevention as they graze.

Kangaroos support vegetation biodiversity and naturally participate in bushfire prevention as they graze. Their fur traps spores and seeds which are redistributed throughout landscapes as they move, and their large toes can also aerate compacted and depleted soils.

While some areas are considered to have an unusually large amount of kangaroos, the destruction of kangaroo habitat for inefficient agriculture (particularly animal rearing), as well as the killing of Australia’s apex predator, the dingo, are major issues, rather than kangaroos themselves.

Impact on individual kangaroos?

We’ve explored how the mass killing of kangaroos hurts their species, but individual kangaroos targeted by the leather industry suffer immensely too.

A poorly regulated, cruel industry

Kangaroos are usually shot and killed at night, when there is low visibility. These killings also occur in rural locations, making monitoring of industry practices nearly impossible. As a result, codes of practice for how kangaroos “should” be shot exist, but are incredibly difficult to enforce. This makes it difficult for brands using kangaroo leather to know what really goes on in their supply chains.

Because of this, some conservative estimates find that as many as 94,000 kangaroos are killed and “processed” each year through methods which violate codes of practice. Some reporting suggests that 40% of kangaroos are shot in the neck, rather than the head, resulting in a slow, painful death. Those living in rural areas where kangaroos are shot for commercial gain have reported finding disturbing remains of kangaroos which show that they died traumatically.

The killing of young joeys

Perhaps the most distressing part of the kangaroo leather supply chain is the treatment of baby kangaroos, known as joeys. Each year, an estimated 440,000 dependent young kangaroos are killed either by being left to starve, or by being clubbed to death. Footage of this legal, standard practice is chilling, and far from what we’d think of when we talk about “ethical fashion”.

How does kangaroo leather impact workers?

As with any other leather, kangaroo leather is transformed through a tanning process. The skins of all human and non-human animals naturally decompose and rot when we die. The tanning process renders “organic matter” as “inorganic”, so that this decomposition process is permanently altered.

Most leather produced around the globe, regardless of species, is tanned with carcinogenic chemicals like chromium, which not only negatively impact the environment, but tannery workers, too. Tannery workers suffer cancer at high rates due to their exposure to tanning chemicals. Tanneries are also highly polluting in many instances, harming surrounding communities.

Sustainable, ethical alternatives to kangaroo leather

If you’re looking to avoid kangaroo leather products, there are fortunately a wide range of leather alternatives. Here are just some of them:

• Recycled leathers, including recycled synthetic leather (ideally certified by the Global Recycling Standard)
• Partly bio-based leathers, like VEGEA derived from wine industry waste, Desserto made partly from cacti, AppleSkin made from apple skins, cores, and seeds, and Piñaex, made from pineapple plant leaf fibres. These are blended with synthetic materials so are not ideal for the environment but a good ethical alternative for those avoiding animal leather
• MIRUM, a completely plastic-free, USDA biopreferred certified leather alternative made from plant-based and other natural substances like clays
• Cork, a largely unprocessed and wholly natural material pulled from trees without harming them. Make sure to opt for cotton-backed cork rather than cork that’s backed with a virgin synthetic material
• Washable paper and Treekind are two tree-based, biodegradable alternatives to leather

The post Ethical Guide to Kangaroo Leather: How Millions of Kangaroos Are Slaughtered For Their Skins appeared first on Good On You.

Nothing warm and fuzzy about the fur industry

Everyone knows how soft and comforting fur can feel—so many of us love petting beloved, furry companion animals. The fur on wild animals like mink, foxes, and raccoon dogs feels very similar, but the conditions they are kept in for the fashion industry are anything but warm and fuzzy.

As much as 95% of all fur sold around the globe comes from animals confined to factory farms. These animals are wild—mink love to swim and can dive as deep as 30 metres, while foxes roam the land as wide as 10 kilometres—making their caged existences extremely distressing. On fur farms, animals are denied the freedoms of nature. Foxes receive 10 million times less space than they freely explore—usually a one metre squared wire cage.

The terror and anguish that animals face in fur supply chains should be reason enough to leave fur behind. But what research has shown is that there are even more reasons that it’s time to say so long to fur.

Joshua Katcher, Collective Fashion Justice board member, author of Fashion Animals, and fashion lecturer who has lobbied for fur bans in America, says that “sick and injured animals driven to physical and psychological distress languish on fur farms, sometimes even resorting to self-harm and cannibalism. They are prevented from engaging in even the most basic, natural behaviours like running, digging, exploring, socialising, or simply having their paws on the dirt.”

So much cruelty goes on in fur farms even before the animals are brutally killed far short of their natural lifespans. To hide all of this, Katcher says that “fur trade groups have made many attempts to combat an evolution toward a more ethical, sustainable, and innovative industry, and have spent a lot of money doing so.”

The environmental and human costs of fur

Fur production is so environmentally harmful that a French advertisement calling fur “natural” and “eco-friendly” was banned by advertising authorities, which labelled it “strongly misleading”.

Fur factory farms are major contributors to ammonia and phosphorus emissions due to the build-up of faecal matter on overcrowded farms. These emissions can lead to eutrophication, risking “dead zones” in surrounding waterways.

While fur is natural when growing out of the bodies of animals, the fur people wear is far from it. Industry-funded studies show that once fur is “dressed”—a process akin to the tanning of leather—it does not effectively biodegrade. Carcinogenic chemicals like formaldehyde and chromium are used, posing significant health risks—and even death—to fur dressing workers. Too, as we saw in the earlier stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, fur farms pose a major risk for the spread of deadly zoonotic diseases.

Animal fur shouldn’t be replaced by unsustainable alternatives

While Katcher tells me that “most fashion students and young designers I speak to today agree that something made in a horribly cruel and ugly way can no longer be seen as good design”, it’s common to hear quandary around what fur should be replaced with.

“Critics say faux fur relies on oil and consequently is not a good alternative. But a synthetic fur made in a responsible environment will always have a lighter environmental impact than animal-based materials,” explains Arnaud Brunois from faux fur artisan ECOPEL “The fur industry relies on oil-based industries as well.”

While this is true—and even conventional synthetic faux fur made from virgin raw materials (petrochemicals) has a significantly lower climate impact than animal fur—this doesn’t mean fossil-fuel derived fur is the ultimate solution. After all, the IPCC states that we must end all fossil fuel extraction.

It is entirely possible to create good products without petrochemicals. There is a lot of innovation in novel bio-based synthetics that could be exact chemical matches to the petro-synthetic, or be very similar.

Dr Sydney Gladman – Chief Scientific Officer at Material Innovation Initiative

Dr Sydney Gladman, Chief Scientific Officer at Material Innovation Initiative, believes it is “entirely possible to create good products without petrochemicals. There is a lot of innovation in novel bio-based synthetics that could be exact chemical matches to the petro-synthetic, or be very similar.”

Brunois and ECOPEL have explored this for some time, alongside synthetic recycling. “At ECOPEL, we believe in balancing nature and technology.”

ECOPEL’s original offering was a lower impact synthetic. Next, the artisans worked on a recycled synthetic faux fur, which they are now looking to improve again, by switching from recycled bottles for recycled ocean waste: “Our UMI collection is made from regenerated yarns produced from recycled waste collected from the ocean by Seaqual”.

Continuing to improve options for brands seeking more ethical and sustainable “fur”, a few years ago, ECOPEL launched KOBA, first used by Stella McCartney. Still partly synthetic, this is a “partially plant-based faux fur”, reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Just recently, the company launched GACHA, which is made from a variety of biodegradable polyester.

Faux fur of the future

According to key stats based on Good On You’s brand ratings, there is no evidence of fur use in the collections of 95% of total brands. While this number drops slightly to 89% in the luxury sector, the majority of luxury brands have banned fur in recent years. And while several countries have already banned fur farming, a European Citizen’s Initiative currently collecting signatures may see all fur farming and farmed fur product sales banned across the continent. For the sake of animals, the planet, and our collective health, it’s clear why there’s a growing movement against commercial fur.

Material innovation is aiding the industry in this move. And it’s well received by brands. Brunois works with many of the most luxurious fashion houses in the world and says that “the luxury industry is very excited about these innovations. It seems that the consensus is ‘no’ to animal fur and ‘yes’ to new generations of faux furs with a lower impact and a virtuous end of life.”

But, while significant progress in the next-gen “circumfaunal” material space has been made, there’s still room to grow. Material Innovation Initiative’s Chief Innovation Officer, Elaine Siu, notes that “there just hasn’t been enough dedicated R&D specific to the faux fur space.”

The overarching progress in the world of bio-based synthetics and plant fibres will definitely also accelerate the creation of high-performance and sustainable next-gen fur.

With the private capital investment in next-gen material companies doubling from 2020 to 2021, reaching US$980 million, we expect to see more breakthroughs, including in the next-gen fur category. The overarching progress in the world of bio-based synthetics and plant fibres will definitely also accelerate the creation of high-performance and sustainable next-gen fur.

We have seen so much progress in the next-gen fur space in the last few years, and this growth is only further flourishing. While it’s inevitable that the future of fur is animal free, it seems the greatest limit to our idea of what faux fur is and will be is our imaginations. Scientists and material innovation experts are sure to continually surprise and inspire those across the fashion landscape.

The post Fashion Is Moving Beyond Fur, so What’s Next? appeared first on Good On You.

Is cashmere the same as wool?

While sheep and alpacas are shorn for their wool, it’s goats who are most often combed for cashmere production. Cashmere fibre is just another name for the hair of a specific breed of goat originating in Kashmir, India, where cashmere production is said to have begun around the 13th century.

Unlike the vast majority of wool production, most cashmere goats live nomadically with herders rather than confined to one fenced area for the entirety of their productive lives.

While advertisements may lead us to believe that goats grazing grasslands live happy lives and contribute positively to the ecosystem they are bred into, unfortunately, this is not necessarily the case. Is cashmere ethical or sustainable? Let’s take a look.

Cashmere: how a status symbol got so cheap

People used to pay a lot more for cashmere than they do today. This isn’t unique to cashmere, as the fast fashion industry continues to spew out all kinds of garments for lower market prices while the true cost is footed by the people, animals, and environments harmed in their making.

As more people (particularly those in the West) demanded more cashmere knitwear, an industry that requires four goats to be combed for a single sweater has had to ramp up its pace. This has led to far lower welfare standards for goats and reduced payments to herders and industry workers, causing socio-economic struggles.

Four goats need to be combed for a single cashmere sweater.

This alone doesn’t pull expensive cashmere off the ethical hook, though—most problems with cashmere laid out in this guide occur industry-wide to varying degrees.

Impact on animals

The ethical questions around cashmere primarily centre around animal welfare—in this case, the wellbeing of goats. Before we get into the problems goats face in the cashmere industry, it’s worth knowing more about the animals themselves.

Goats are clever, known to be inquisitive, at times a bit cheeky, and highly expressive. They communicate with each other, recognising both positive and negative emotions just through the sound of a call from another goat. Researchers have compared the way goats engage with humans to our relationships with dogs.

So how are these sentient animals—capable of feeling pleasure just as much as pain—treated in the cashmere industry?

Combing: not as ‘cruelty-free’ as it sounds

Many companies selling cashmere sweaters, scarves, and beanies will explain on their websites that cashmere goats aren’t shorn like sheep but gently combed. This claim can make it sound as though the process is comfortable for the animals. However, this isn’t the case.

While in Iran, Afghanistan, New Zealand, and Australia, cashmere goats are shorn—resulting in the same welfare problems found in wool supply chains—the majority of goats are combed with sharp-toothed metal combs. These combs can scratch deeply into their skin, sometimes causing bruises and injury.

The RSPCA, considered a conservative animal welfare organisation, does not support the use of these metal combs. Across Asia and most Middle Eastern countries where cashmere production is most common (China and Mongolia are the leading suppliers), here’s how cashmere collection usually goes down:

• Goats are tied up, all four of their legs wrapped together, so they are immobilised. This immobilisation is, as you would imagine, frightening and stressful.
• Goats are roughly combed for as long as an hour, on average. Investigations have shown goats screaming out in pain and distress during this long and gruelling process.
• While goats are often claimed to be combed when they are naturally moulting (shedding their thick winter coats), this moulting process varies based on unique differences between individuals. This means some goats in a herd may not be moulting come combing time.

A slaughter industry

Not only do cashmere goats suffer through the distressing combing process—as well as painful mutilations like castration (for males) without pain relief—they are killed once they are of little financial value.

Goats would naturally live to be about twelve years old, though some have lived far older. Goats treated as commodities in the cashmere industry don’t get to live out their full lifespan, as once their hair thins and brittles with age (just like our own), they are slaughtered.

In countries like Australia, goats are killed some years before reaching even half their natural lifespan. What’s more, if goats are born with a coat of hair that is considered “the wrong colour”, or if their hair isn’t thought of as “high quality” enough, they’ll be killed far sooner.

Across leading cashmere suppliers China and Mongolia, there are practically no laws protecting goats from cruelty. Here, investigations have shown goats to be killed while fully conscious.

Impact on humans and their land

While research shows that jobs involving slaughtering animals can lead to severe negative mental health outcomes, cashmere herders face other problems, too.

Reporting has consistently shown that rising demand for cashmere in the West is tied to a cashmere-debt cycle and poorer social outcomes for those working in the industry. It has also been directly linked to rising climatic temperatures, land degradation, and even some native species endangerment.

This reality can be devastating for many nomadic herders who feel they have no choice but to contribute to this destruction for our cashmere demand.

Yes, I know my goats are harmful to our grassland and the more we have, the worse our land becomes. I get that. But this is how we earn our money. All I can do is watch my grasslands disappear.

Lkhagvajav Bish – nomadic herder

Bish’s words reflect the broader struggle that comes with knowing the cashmere industry is causing detrimental harm to the land herders live on while feeling there is no choice but to continue unless demand dies down again. If consumers shifted away from purchasing new cashmere due to its detrimental impacts, we would need to factor the wellbeing of herders into that shift and find new, more just and sustainable ways to economically support them going forward.

Impact on the planet

Here’s the good bit: cashmere is biodegradable and a renewable resource. As far as materials go, it is more eco-friendly than some others.

However, the agricultural side of cashmere does have planetary impacts: 65% of Mongolia’s once biodiverse grasslands have been degraded due to cashmere goat grazing, as well as the impact of the climate crisis. The breeding of ruminant animals like goats and sheep who burp methane is responsible for 472 million metric tons of CO2e each year. Removing this problem would be equal to taking 103 million cars off the road for a year.

What’s more, goats are notoriously unfussy eaters, ripping all sorts of plants up from the roots, contributing to biodiversity loss. The sharp hooves of these goats also cut into and can degrade the earth underneath them.

While this all sounds grim, researcher Bulgamaa Densambuu has some good news about these grasslands: “90% of this total degraded rangeland can be recovered naturally within ten years if we can change existing management. But if we can’t change today, it will be too late after five to ten years.”

Is there more ethical and sustainable cashmere?

Given the significant harm that cashmere production causes goats, herders, and the environment they share, conscious consumers’ best bet is to avoid new cashmere.

If you’re really keen on snuggling into the warm fibre, opting for the many well-made vintage or second hand garments knitted from the material is the ideal option.

Recycled cashmere is available on the market and is an eco-friendly option, though keep in mind that many partly recycled garments are blended with new cashmere.

As always, buying pre-loved and caring for the clothes you already have is the most ethical and sustainable way to get dressed. But if you’re looking for new knitwear and want to avoid cashmere (as well as wool), here are some more ethical and sustainable materials you might want to keep an eye out for:

• Recycled plant-based materials like cotton
• More sustainably, fairly sourced cotton such as GOTS certified cotton
• Hemp and hemp blends
• Tencel, which has similar thermo-regulating properties
• Organic linen
• Recycled or second hand synthetic materials (though these do still shed plastic microfibres—consider buying a Guppyfriend wash bag, which many brands encourage)

If you’re worried about keeping warm, remember that there are lots of technical fabrics and garments designed for staying toasty made from recycled human-made materials, as well as more innovative plant-based ones.

The post Material Guide: How Ethical Is Cashmere and Is It Sustainable? appeared first on Good On You.

Leather may not be as eco-friendly as claimed

Leather boots, bags, wallets and jackets are considered essential staples in many wardrobes. With promises of being a long-lasting, “natural”, and even “biodegradable” material, it can be easy to believe there’s a way to source animal-derived leather that’s not harmful to the planet and, in fact, even part of a sustainable system. But is this accurate? Let’s explore the many hidden costs of leather and why consumers concerned about animal welfare and sustainability are best to avoid it.

How does leather impact the environment?

The environmental impacts of leather production extend across the lengthy and sometimes complex supply chain. Lots of people think leather is sustainable because it’s simply a by-product of the meat and dairy industries—in other words, that leather reduces waste. However, it’s not true that leather is a mere by-product. As a consequence, the environmental impact of cattle rearing should be “economically allocated” across the different sectors and products that profit from this system. So, what’s the impact of cattle ranching?

Deforestation

Deforestation is a serious problem across the fashion industry, caused by a reliance on unsustainable cellulose materials made from logged, often old-growth trees, and other land-inefficient material production. Too, among the most alarming harms caused by leather production is deforestation. As much as 80% of deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest is tied to cattle ranching. This deforestation results in massive biodiversity destruction and, in turn, the endangerment of native animal and plant species. And it’s not just deforestation—all land and vegetation clearing is harmful to the planet, which is why land efficient agriculture is so important.

Another primary driver of deforestation is soy production, which is closely linked to leather, as well. Around 80% goes towards feed for cattle and other farmed animals. 77% of all agricultural land around the world is used to raise animals for slaughter and grow feed for them. The rearing of cattle is the leading driver of habitat destruction in Australia, with similar stories playing out across the globe.

You can see the visible impacts of deforestation in Brazil, the third most significant bovine skin exporter worldwide (close behind India and China). To put this back into a fashion context, 10,000 square metres of land in Brazil must be cleared or kept cleared to produce around nine leather jackets. It is likely this land was cleared illegally and that it is land in the biodiverse Amazon Rainforest. You need just over a metre of leather to make a jacket. By comparison, Piñatex’s pineapple leaf-based leather alternative needs just about 16 square metres of pineapple-growing land for each metre of material.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Let’s start with something you might have in your closet: a pair of cow skin leather boots. These seemingly innocuous shoes have an estimated climate footprint of 66kg of CO2e. Where does that CO2 come from?

Cattle are ruminant animals, which means that when they breathe, pass gas, and burp, they release methane—a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than CO2 in the short term. The United Nations says, “livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today’s most serious environmental problems”.

Excluded from these calculations are further emissions, associated with land clearing. Land clearing for cattle rearing not only impacts biodiversity but also our warming climate. When we cut down and destroy trees, carbon is released into the atmosphere. This is one component of leather’s carbon impact.

Water, chemicals, and leather processing

Leather production is also water-intensive. Some estimates suggest that the creation of a cow skin tote bag might require more than 17,000 litres of water. Conventional cotton is often water-intensive, too, but studies find leather to be one of the most water-intensive materials that’s commonly used in fashion.

It’s not only that water is used up by leather production, but that it’s polluted, too. Skins are transformed into leather through the tanning process, and 90% of leather is tanned with carcinogenic chromium and often with formaldehyde and arsenic. These chemicals are detrimental to human health, reported to cause asthma, back pains, bronchitis, chronic dermatitis, DNA damage, and even cancer, to name a few. Today, the majority of tanneries have been moved to lower- and middle-income countries in an effort to export pollution problems. In these places, wastewater is often released into waterways untreated, impacting surrounding land and human and non-human animal communities.

What’s more, some evidence suggests that tanning processes—including vegetable tanning—can hinder the ability of animal skins to biodegrade. Considering biodegradability is hailed as one of animal leather’s main benefits over most non-animal alternatives, this is significant.

Vegetable-tanning is also far less innocent than it may first sound, requiring tannins found in the bark of trees, and with some reports finding “no significant differences” in the environmental footprint of leather tanned with tannins as compared to chromium.

How does leather impact people?

We know leather production causes harm to human communities nearby, like through toxic chemicals released into waterways. But are there more direct harms to people? The answer lies in the experiences of workers along the supply chain, from those rearing the cattle to those tanning the leather.

Tannery workers

Tannery workers are often exploited and face serious health risks, illness, and even death due to exposure to carcinogenic and harmful chemicals. For example, some reporting finds tannery workers have a 50% higher risk of pancreatic cancer linked to chemical exposure. Due to the pollution impact, industrial areas of China where leather is tanned are even referred to as “cancer villages” by local and international news outlets.

Farm workers

Forced labour can be a problem in leather supply chains, as with so many other fashion supply chains. Labour trafficking, debt bondage, and other forms of forced labour have all been recorded in Brazil, Paraguay, and Vietnam. This is of great concern given the lack of transparency in leather supply chains.

Many farm workers have also reported mental anguish related to their work, as they connect with the sentient animals they are paid to harm.

Slaughterhouse workers

We cannot forget that leather is produced in a slaughtering supply chain, and the human implications are significant. Slaughterhouse workers, like soldiers, commonly experience perpetration-induced stress (PITS), a mental illness similar to PTSD, but which comes from being “the direct reason for another being’s trauma”. According to the report by the Yale Global Health Review, as with PTSD, symptoms include “substance abuse, anxiety issues, depression, and dissociation from reality”.

Personal accounts from slaughterhouse workers killing cattle are disturbing and distressing, but the impact of slaughterhouse work doesn’t end there. Physical injuries are prevalent in this line of work, with around two injuries a week reported in the UK and two amputations a week in the US. But what’s perhaps even more concerning is what Yale researchers call “spillover in the psyches” of these workers who are often refugees, migrants, and other marginalised people, as many people with privilege avoid this work.

The mindset that slaughterhouse workers must maintain to survive their work can mean violence towards cattle transforms into violence against other people in their communities, too. Across 500 US counties, communities surrounding slaughterhouses fall victim to disproportionately high numbers of violent offences, including sexual assault.

How does leather impact animals?

While people on farms and in slaughterhouses report feeling traumatised by their treatment of animals, the animals themselves face intense trauma, only ending through slaughter.

Cattle and other animals tied up in leather supply chains like buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs, and so many others are sentient and capable of fear and pain as much as joy and pleasure. Cows get excited when they learn something new, enjoy music, and form close social bonds. Sounds sweet, unlike the treatment of these creatures.

Some of the softest leather comes from calves, sometimes reared and killed specifically for luxury fashion. Other times, calf skin sales are a way to increase profits in the dairy industry, where male calves (who cannot produce milk) are slaughtered at five days old. Separating these young calves from their mothers—who are forcibly impregnated—can lead to depression in calves and extreme distress for their mothers, who are known to chase after vehicles taking their young away.

Cattle kept alive for longer often face painful yet legal mutilation like dehorning, branding, and castration without any pain relief.

Despite a potential lifespan of over 20 years, cattle whose skins are sold after their slaughter in the beef industry are generally a couple of years old. Cattle killed in leather supply chains are often slaughtered while fully conscious, in countries where animal welfare laws are either not enforced or non-existent. Even in countries with supposedly high animal welfare laws, cattle are regularly found to be slaughtered while conscious.

But what about certified sustainable and ethical leather?

Some certifications and standards claim to ensure sustainable and ethical leather. But is this possible? What are these standards changing, if anything?

The Leather Working Group (LWG) label is often seen on leather goods labelled as “sustainable” and “ethical”. On the plus side, LWG addresses environmental issues like the use of harmful chemicals such as chromium, effluent treatment, and also promotes traceability. But it’s not perfect: the Leather Working Group certification only covers tanneries, meaning many brands—such as Adidas, H&M, Zara, Prada, and Off White which use LWG certified leather—have been linked to Amazonian deforestation. Further, these tannery audits do not require social auditing to protect workers, and no consideration of cattle wellbeing is made, either.

What about leather made from animals raised in “regenerative agriculture” systems? Proponents claim that there is a sustainable and low-impact way to continue the widespread use of animal agriculture in a warming climate, saying that “high intensity, short duration grazing management can not only achieve greater livestock productivity and health but also sequester significantly more carbon than either continuous grazing management or the removal of animals from the land”. However, as the University of Oxford’s massive “Grazed and Confused” report finds, animal agricultural systems—even if they are more holistically managed—still have worsened environmental impacts than non-animal, plant-based systems do. The report concluded that data could not properly back up many of the aforementioned claims.

If you don’t mind wearing cow skin leather and want to continue wearing it, the most sustainable way is to keep wearing what you already have. You can also ensure that this leather lasts longer by caring for it properly. You can also look for vintage and pre-loved leather or recycled leather—but make sure that it’s reputably certified to be recycled and not greenwashed. It’s worth noting, too, that recycled leather can often contain plastic.

Sustainable leather alternatives

Are there any better alternatives to leather that aren’t simply plastic? While for now, synthetic leather remains the most common alternative to animal skin leather, that’s starting to change. And even plastic is getting a little more environmentally conscious, despite it still being plastic. PU, or polyurethane, is now more common than PVC (polyvinyl chloride), which is comparatively more harmful to the planet. Some synthetic leathers are now water-based or certified by standards like REACH and OEKO-TEX 100 which, while imperfect, are still a slight improvement on conventional synthetics.

PU synthetic leather has a reduced environmental impact during production when compared to cow skin leather, when considering climate, water, eutrophication, chemistry, and other impacts. This is worth keeping in mind if your options are limited (and you’ve already tried looking for pre-loved vegan leather— of which there is plenty). However, ideally, we should all be opting for more sustainable leather alternatives when buying new, especially as less synthetic options become more accessible.

Recycled, bio-based, and biodegradable leather alternatives

So, what are the options? First up, we have recycled leather (animal-based or synthetic), ideally certified by the Global Recycling Standard. Next, improving on purely synthetic leather are partly bio-based leather alternatives, like VEGEA, made from wine industry repurposed grape waste; Desserto, made from cacti; AppleSkin, made from—you guessed it—apple skins, cores, and seeds, and the earlier mentioned Piñatex, made from pineapple leaf fibre.

All of these materials are only partly bio-based and, like animal leather, won’t completely biodegrade. This is because they are coated in plastic, even if it’s a bio-based resin made from plant starch. While this is an improvement, it’s not the end of the road.

If you’re looking for a biodegradable leather alternative that’s available right now, opt for cotton-backed cork; washable paper, or more innovative and upcoming materials, like leaf-based Treekind—keeping in mind how new they are to the market and that comprehensive peer-reviewed studies on their environmental impacts might not yet exist.

The future of animal-free leather

In the future, we’ll also see much greater access to mycelium-based leather alternatives, like Mylo Unleather and Reishi. While these aren’t yet biodegradable, they’re far more climate, water, and land efficient and have some of the best tactile qualities.

There’s plenty to explore when it comes to the world of leather alternatives, and it’s an exciting time to see how this industry progresses. Material Innovation Initiative reporting has found that around 50 companies are currently working on next-gen leather-free materials. Almost all major brands are keen to use them, and there is plenty of financial support backing their development.

The future of leather-free fashion is looking good for people, the planet, and of course, our animal friends.

Learn more about sustainable and ethical materials

The post Material Guide: Is Leather Ethical or Sustainable? appeared first on Good On You.

Down feather: what’s all the fluff about?

Whether we think about it or not, hidden inside many of our puffer jackets and winter coats are feathers. Feather down usually comes from ducks and geese, which raises questions about their treatment. And while down is biodegradable, there’s a lot more to sustainability that we need to consider. So, is down feather ethical and sustainable?

A topic that’s ruffled feathers

While it can be easy to forget that people wear down feathers at all as it’s hidden inside our clothes, the down industry has had its fair share of criticism and controversy splashed across the media. The main reason for this? Live plucking.

Sometimes, ducks and geese have their feathers plucked out of their bodies while fully conscious. Their feathers are then sold, and when their new feathers grow back, they’re plucked again. This process is as painful as it sounds and can cause skin tears, severe injury, and even death.

But is this a problem across the down industry, or is there such a thing as ethical feather down? And what is the impact of feather down on the world around us?

Why do people wear down feathers at all?

• The downy feathers of birds are very warm, and until somewhat recently, there have not been alternatives that are as warm, if not warmer
• Down feathers are light, which can be useful if you’re layering clothes to keep warm
• Down feathers are biodegradable

But the supply chains which bring down feathers to the fashion industry are complex and come with a host of environmental costs and ethical issues—let’s take a look.

Impact on animals

Let’s get straight to it—the down industry is a slaughter industry. In the words of the International Down and Feather Bureau, “there are no farms that raise ducks and geese purely for the procurement of down and feather”. This fact doesn’t mean feathers are a worthless by-product of the meat industry, but—as with leather—down is a valuable co-product of meat production, bringing significant profit. The global down and feather market value continues to increase, with the industry estimated to be worth over $6.6 billion USD. Each year, an unimaginable 3.3 billion ducks are slaughtered across the globe—that’s 9 million each day.

Ducks and geese are thinking and feeling individuals just like any other animals—humans included. Ducks bob their heads around when they’re excited, and they’re highly social. Meanwhile, geese choose life partners and even mourn their deaths.

Sadly, even Responsible Down Standard certified down, and other supposedly “ethical” down certifications do not prevent ducks and geese from being slaughtered. While there is merit in attempting to reduce the amount of suffering involved in an animal’s life, it’s important to remember that commercial systems that treat animals as means to profit will always include a level of cruelty and eventual killing.

Let’s explore some of the most concerning aspects of the down industry.

False claims of cruelty-free feather collection

Many people choose to avoid down from birds who have been plucked alive, given how much suffering this causes. However, it’s been found that even Responsible Down Standard certified down suppliers and companies—which assure no live-plucking—have continued to live-pluck ducks and geese on farms. Suppliers have been recorded admitting to lying for the sake of the profit: “nobody dares to buy it if you say it’s live-plucked“.

Similarly, some farms and fashion brands claim feathers are “collected” during birds’ natural moulting process each year. It’s argued that feathers loosen during moulting, meaning that feather collection is a pain-free process. Unfortunately, all birds on a farm won’t moult simultaneously, so there’s no way to ensure many birds aren’t still being painfully plucked.

Foie gras, force-feeding, and feather down

Even if down isn’t sourced from ducks and geese who have been plucked alive, it can come from birds who have lived through suffering. Namely, by way of foie gras. Foie gras has been banned in dozens of countries, and most recently, in the city of New York. Foie gras means “fat liver” in French and is a paste made from the livers of ducks and geese who have been confined to cages and force-fed fatty food with a pipe that is pushed down their throat. This process can grow a duck’s liver up to ten times its normal size, and after 15 weeks of this pain and suffering, ducks are slaughtered.

Whether raised for meat or foie gras, ducks are killed at only a few weeks or months old, despite naturally living for over a decade. While we won’t get into the details, the slaughter of ducks is inherently violent.

Feather down from factory farms

The vast majority of ducks are factory farmed, as with most animals reared for production worldwide. Ducks and geese are aquatic birds, and if you’ve ever seen these birds while out walking, you’ll know that they spend the vast majority of their time on the water or nearby it. Despite this, ducks on factory farms—packed into sheds full of hundreds or thousands of other birds—are largely denied surface water to float in. This can cripple birds, who are not built to carry their weight on land so often.

The confinement ducks and geese face, cramping them in close quarters with so many other birds, can also result in psychological harm and related aggression between birds. Sometimes, factory farms cut or burn the ends of birds’ beaks off to avoid injuries when fighting rather than addressing the root cause.

A lack of animal protection laws

Down predominantly comes from nations with no or insufficient laws prohibiting violence against animals, especially farmed animals. Across the globe, animal laws are far worse than you might assume. China, where the vast majority of down is sourced, has no national laws prohibiting violence against animals. Similarly, while nations including Australia, America, and the United Kingdom have animal protection laws, they essentially exempt farmed animals to protect industry interest. In other words, cruelty to animals like ducks and geese is legal, so long as it can be deemed “necessary” to the industry’s profits—like the industry that sells feather down, which goes into jackets and coats.

Impact on the planet

Not only does down production harm ducks and geese themselves, but the planet is also impacted. While down is technically biodegradable—meaning it won’t hang around for years to come should it be discarded and it won’t leach toxins into the soil—there’s more to consider.

Reduced biodegradability

Here’s the thing: while down may be biodegradable, feathers are always kept inside of jackets and coats, and normally, this outer shell is not made from a biodegradable material. Even if a puffer jacket is made from recycled polyester, making it slightly more sustainable, this synthetic acts as a barrier between the outside world and the down—meaning it won’t be able to effectively biodegrade.

With equal to a garbage truck of textiles and clothing being sent to landfill every second around the world, the polyester of a synthetic jacket filled with down can take as long as 200 years to break down. If we want to talk about biodegradability in fashion, we need to consider garments in full, not solely the elements inside of them.

Inefficient animal rearing

As with all animal agricultural systems, rearing ducks is inefficient, and that means you need to put more into the system that aims to produce feathers and meat than you get out of it. When we factory farm birds, it’s not only the land the farm stands on that’s being used up, but all of the land used to grow monoculture cereal crops that ducks and geese eat, too. 36% of all crop calories grown worldwide go directly to farmed animals, but if we moved away from a reliance on animal agriculture, we could produce more with less land and allow more land to be rewilded, assisting in biodiversity restoration and carbon sequestration.

Eutrophication

Factory farms have another significant impact on the planet, called eutrophication. Eutrophication is a process in which a body of water becomes too rich in particular nutrients, resulting in the dense growth of blue-green algae that can suffocate everything underneath the water’s surface. This eutrophication can result in dead zones where aquatic life cannot survive. Runoff from factory farms like those confining ducks and geese is full of phosphorus-rich faeces, which often results in eutrophication.

Water worries

Water surrounding slaughterhouses—not just factory farms—is also put at risk by the down industry. When ducks and geese are slaughtered and later plucked of their feathers, it often occurs in abattoirs that release massive amounts of wastewater. The organic matter in this wastewater is not only bad for the planet but for surrounding (usually lower-socioeconomic) communities, too. A slaughterhouse killing birds has even been sued for dumping so much wastewater that members of the surrounding human community reportedly faced miscarriages, congenital disabilities, epilepsy, and other illness.

Can you buy ethical down feathers?

All down comes from ducks and geese who have been slaughtered or plucked alive. Unfortunately, there is no getting around that. Even when considering certifications like the Responsible Down Standard, birds live in factory farms up until they are killed far short of their natural lifespan and often face all sorts of harm until then.

With all of this in mind, there is no way to buy new feather down which does not cause direct suffering for birds. If you really need to buy feather down (though you’ll see some excellent, sustainable and ethical alternatives below), it’s best to try to find something pre-loved. Of course, you can also buy pre-loved non-down filled jackets and coats.

Finally, recycled down is not always 100% recycled, so if you’re considering buying something new made with recycled down, make sure to ask how the brand knows that 100% of the feather down is reclaimed from post-consumer products like duvets and pillows and not from cruelly treated birds.

Animal-free down alternatives

The best way to protect ducks and geese from harm is to choose animal-free alternatives to down. In the past decade, alternatives have become much more sustainable, and this innovation is only continuing. Some of the most sustainable alternatives to down include:

• PrimaLoft P.U.R.E
  This material is proven to be warmer than down, and unlike down, it is water-resistant. It is made of post-consumer waste plastics, resulting in a 48% emissions reduction during production.
  
• PrimaLoft Bio
  With the same benefits as other PrimaLoft materials, this material is 100% recycled and can completely biodegrade within two years.
• Thermore
  Certifiably made from 100% recycled, post-consumer PET plastic, this material is durable and long lasting. One of the benefits of using an innovative material like this, rather than feather down, is that it doesn’t stay damp, grow mould, or become heavy like wet down does.
  
• Recycled materials
  While PrimaLoft and Thermore are known as one of the most sustainable and effective recycled alternatives to down, many coat fillings are made from post-consumer waste. Given these fibres are inside of another material and in a garment that isn’t often machine washed, microfibre shedding is less of a concern, though still something to consider.
  
• Flowerdown
  This innovative material is becoming increasingly accessible and is made of wildflowers combined with aerogel and a biopolymer, increasing water repellency and thermal insulation while maintaining biodegradability.

Brands using down alternatives

The post Material Guide: Is Down Feather Ethical and Sustainable? appeared first on Good On You.

A woolly topic

The wool industry has a fairly wholesome image, which we take comfort in, too, as we picture well cared for sheep, roaming rolling hills. We imagine they’re rounded up every so often for a haircut which, if done with care, is an essential part of the life of a sheep. It seems as though the wool industry is mutually beneficial: sheep are cared for, we get warm woolly clothes. Win-win, right?

Unfortunately, the reality is far more complex. More and more investigations of the wool industry have found this picturesque ideal far from the truth. A few years ago, ethical outdoor clothing company Patagonia discovered animal cruelty practices in what they had believed were ethical farms. The world has been shocked by countless undercover exposés revealing painful mulesing and tail docking, two “surgical” practices legally performed with tools like knives, often with no pain relief.

But are these practices all we need to avoid for wool to be ethical? And how does wool production impact the world around us?

Why do we wear wool?

• Wool is breathable and a natural insulator
• Wool has an ability—similar to Tencel—to react to changes in the body’s temperature, meaning it keeps you cool in summer and warm in winter
• Wool is usually biodegradable. It decomposes readily, much like cotton and other plant-based fibres. That means once a woollen garment is worn out, you can bury it in the ground, and it will eventually compost. As long as it’s not superwash wool, which is coated in plastic.

But wool comes with a host of environmental costs and ethical issues—let’s take a look.

Impact on animals

Sheep have been domesticated for an extended part of human history but didn’t start as they are now. Humans have selectively bred sheep to maximise the amount of wool they carry. As a result, sheep risk death from heat exhaustion if not shorn. The sheep’s original ancestor, mouflon, could naturally shed their winter coats. The sheep we know today only continue to exist because we cyclically breed and slaughter them for our consumption of meat, wool, and sheepskins. We could see a future without sheep farming if we opted for plant-based materials instead and if lab-grown materials (and proteins) became a viable alternative.

In Australia, one of the world’s largest wool producers, it is widely believed that there are comprehensive animal welfare laws and standards. However, current Australian animal welfare legislation exempts farmed animals from the protections our dog and cat friends have. Sheep and other farmed animals are sentient creatures like pets and have an equal capacity to feel pain. There is also ample evidence that proves sheep are not as unintelligent as popular culture makes them out to be. Did you know sheep can remember as many as 50 sheep faces in addition to familiar human faces?

Some people consider alpaca wool a kind alternative to sheep’s wool, as it is often marketed as small-scale and sustainable in the industry. Unfortunately, an investigation into the leading production country of alpaca wool, Peru, has shown the opposite to be true. Following the release of footage showing alpacas suffering as they are tied down for shearing, even UNIQLO has banned the fibre. While these findings are always shocking and upsetting, it’s powerful to know that people raising their voices against poor treatment can foster change, even in big brands.

Painful standard practices

Current laws allow for standard practices such as castration, tail docking, and mulesing, all without pain relief. There is discussion about potentially making pain relief mandatory for mulesing in some places—as is already the case in New Zealand and Victoria—but not for castration or tail docking yet.

Both tail docking and mulesing are practised to reduce the risk of flystrike. Flystrike happens when blowfly eggs laid on the skin hatch, and the larvae feed on the sheep’s tissue. It can cause infection and even death. Mulesing involves cutting skin from the buttock region with a knife, and tail docking is exactly what it sounds like—cutting or otherwise severing sheep’s tails. These painful practices are recommended to be performed on lambs only a few weeks old.

Fortunately, flystrike can be avoided without mulesing or tail docking, thanks to regular surveillance, crutching (shearing around the buttocks of a sheep), and other interventions. We see this happen at rescue animal sanctuaries. However, large flock sizes are often more profitable, with the average Australian flock containing 2,700 sheep and worldwide flock sizes generally being large. It is near impossible to ensure that such a large number of sheep receive this level of care and attention in the industry.

The good news? Numerous brands are pledging to use mulesing-free wool or go wool-free altogether in response to the painful practice. This is a clear indication that animal rights are being more considered. Learn more about Four Paws’ #woolwithabutt campaign and add your signature to support mulesing-free wool. However, mulesing is only one form of mutilation performed on sheep, and we’d love to see the others be considered, too.

Wool and meat

The wool industry is often considered different from or “kinder” than the leather industry because skin comes from a dead animal, whereas wool may not. However, the wool and meat industries are intrinsically linked, as animals used for their wool are usually slaughtered for their flesh once they stop producing quality wool. This is the case for sheep and alpaca wool production.

Three-quarters of the sheep in Australia are merino—known as the “wool” breed—with most others being crossbreeds. Sheep are considered “dual purpose” by the industry, and even merinos are used for both meat and wool.

Sheep who are no longer producing wool of a financially viable quality for the industry are killed. Generally, this is because they reach 5 or 6 years old, and their wool degrades just like our hair does as we age. These sheep, who can naturally live up to twelve years old, are considered “cast for age” and sent to slaughter, often through the live export industry. The conditions on live export ships are horrific, and many animals die before they arrive at their slaughter destination due to stress, starvation, and overheating. To put this into perspective, out of the 3,000 brands that Good On You has rated, only one single brand has outlined a plan where sheep are not slaughtered when they stop producing viable wool.

Winter lambing

If we rewind to the beginning of a sheep’s life, there’s even more to uncover. Lambs in the wool and meat industries are generally bred to be born in the winter season. This is a cost-effective decision for the industry, as it means the lambs have green grass to fatten up on in spring, reducing the need for costly supplementary feed.

Fifteen million lambs die in the first 48 hours of their lives each year due to exposure to the cold, starvation, and neglect. This number is in part so high because the industry has selectively bred sheep for generations to have higher rates of twins and triplets. Twins and triplets are more likely to be smaller, weaker, and unable to withstand the harsh conditions they are born into.

Similarly, it is difficult for mother ewes to look after more lambs—especially triplets, as they only have two teats to feed their lambs from—and they are more prone to birthing complications and death. Farmers are encouraged by the industry to cull ewes who have been unable to keep their lambs alive, as they are considered less profitable mothers.

Some organisations take in orphaned lambs who are found or handed over from farmers who don’t want to see them die, like Lamb Care Australia. It’s comforting to know such missions exist while the broader issue continues to be addressed.

All of this suffering is avoidable as there are plenty of similar materials that aren’t made from animals. A great thermo-regulating alternative to wool is Tencel, and you can find more fabric recommendations at the end of the article.

Impact on the planet

Other than it being unnatural for our earth to have so many sheep on it—we breed and kill a staggering 500 million sheep annually worldwide—wool is a natural fibre, and it will biodegrade. Biodegradable materials are, of course, far better for the environment when considering post-consumer waste than synthetics like nylon, polyester, and acrylic, as these are forms of plastic. Like any other plastic, these fabrics take years to break down if they are discarded. Not to mention the pesky microfibres they shed in washing machines that end up in waterways.

But biodegradability is not all there is to the sustainability considerations of a fabric. Even when comparing Australian wool with Australian grown cotton, Collective Fashion Justice’s CIRCUMFAUNA initiative found that wool has a very high impact, with the production of a wool knit jumper emitting 27 times more greenhouse gas emissions than a cotton one. And did you know that heat-generating emissions from land clearing for pasture, enteric fermentation (animal belching and breathing), burning savannah, manure, and “livestock” production generates 83% of all Australian agricultural emissions?

As we continue to compare Australian grown fibres—though cotton is not faultless—we also see that to produce one bale of wool, a whopping 367 times more land must be kept cleared than for a bale of cotton. In fact, animal farming generally is the world’s largest user of land resources. Pasture and arable land used to grow feed for farmed animals represent almost 80% of total agricultural land, and 26% of the earth’s ice-free surface is used for grazing. When we clear land, we cause a loss of biodiversity, wild animals lose their natural habitat and have an increased risk of endangerment and extinction, and greenhouse gas emissions are released as trees are cut down. Intensive sheep farming also results in land degradation and even desertification.

But it’s not all bad news. Environmental scientists are finding that with a transition away from animal agriculture and towards plant-based, recycled, and lab-grown production, we could rewild so much land that 99-163% of our carbon emissions budget could be sequestered.

Can you buy ethical wool?

When buying wool, you will sometimes come across standards and certifications that claim to ensure the fair treatment of animals, such as the Responsible Wool Standard and ZQ Merino Standard.

However, neither of these standards prevent the slaughter of sheep nor the practice of winter lambing. While ZQ Merino Standard does not mention pain relief for tail docking or castration on their website, the Responsible Wool Standard requires it “when suitable pain relief is available”. Importantly, these practices would not be necessary if we didn’t breed farmed animals so intensively, and we would never consider it ethical to cut off the tail of a dog or a cat, even with pain relief. In fact, it’s illegal in many places.

If you do feel you need wool, opt for vintage, pre-loved, or recycled wool goods that don’t contribute to any of the harms facing sheep and the planet while keeping landfills less full.

Animal-free wool alternatives

If you feel like you’d rather steer clear of the fluffy white fabric, there’s a bunch of materials you can wear instead that are better for people, the planet, and of course, our animal friends:

• Recycled or second hand synthetic materials (though these do still shed microfibres—consider buying a Guppyfriend wash bag, which many brands encourage)
• Recycled or second hand plant-based materials like cotton
• More sustainably, fairly sourced cotton such as GOTS certified cotton
• Hemp and hemp blends
• Tencel
• Organic linen

It’s helpful to note, too, that woollen knitted garments are not the only way to keep warm in winter. There are plenty of technical fabrics and garments designed for warmth made from recycled human-made materials and innovative plant-based ones.

Stay warm in these sheep-free vegan knits

The post Material Guide: How Sustainable and Ethical Is Wool? appeared first on Good On You.

Fur in fashion: a recent history

The fur and skins of animals have been worn by humans as far back as 120,000 years ago. Today, we have created a fashion industry that offers far more choice in what we keep warm in, and what we wear to express ourselves. The fur industry today also looks very different from prehistoric times: 95% of fur comes from animals confined in wire cages on factory-farms which often pollute their surrounding environment.

Not so long ago, American and British advertisements for dog fur coats weren’t considered unusual, and slogans like “life is too short… to go without mink” were printed with little backlash. Following colonisation in Australia, koalas were nearly driven to extinction for the international fur trade, while toolache wallabies were wiped out.

Today, the fur industry itself is far from extinct—the estimated value of the industry in leading production country China alone sits at US$61bn. However, we’ve taken major steps away from fur. Austria, the Netherlands, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, Norway, Serbia, Slovenia, and several other countries have all banned fur farming, and as many as 69% of the most profitable luxury brands have banned fur from their collections. 95% of brands rated on Good On You are reportedly fur free, too. As more innovative, sustainable alternatives to fur develop, this positive progress is sure to continue.

But how does the current fur industry impact people, the planet, and animals? Let’s take a look.

The impact of the fur trade on animals

While investigations exposing the sale of domestic cat fur make headlines because of our close proximity and care for the species, global public opinion polling shows us that it’s not what species is killed for fur, but the production and wearing of fur at all, that people are no longer willing to accept. There is a societal shift as more and more consumers are beginning to realise that animals needn’t be killed for our wardrobes.

Killing and skinning

What goes on behind the scenes in the fur industry is brutal and confronting for the average consumer: even the slaughter methods labelled by the industry as “humane”. These methods prioritise protecting products from damage for the sake of profit, disregarding the suffering behind the “fashionable” animal skins. The two most common slaughter methods on fur factory-farms? Electrocution and gassing. The details of how invasive electrical probes are, and how long it can take for animals to die from CO2 gas are distressing. Worse, investigations have shown time and time again that many animals on fur farms are beaten to death, some even skinned alive.

Animals that aren’t factory-farmed, but instead trapped in their natural habitat—like coyotes, some foxes, raccoons, beavers, and so on—have no better fate: these animals are known to gnaw off their own limbs in efforts to escape traps, and those who do not are usually shot. A wide range of torturous treatment has also been documented in the “trapping” branch of the industry that is proving nigh impossible to regulate.

Cruelty is one fashion statement we can all do without

Rue McClanahan

Factory-farming wild animals

Some of the most commonly factory-farmed animals in the fur industry are all wild, undomesticated animals: mink, foxes, and racoon dogs. Mink are solitary animals who, in their natural habitat, live near water—which they can swim under for about 30 metres. These territorial individuals enjoy their own space, just like foxes do. The psychological impacts of their confinement are significant.

Despite their natural traits and urges to dig dirt and roam wide, these animals are kept in barren wire cages, in close confines with others. A standard fox fur farm cage is about one square metre, while they naturally roam about 10 square kilometres—that’s 10 million times less space. Unable to act out their most basic urges and desires, these species show clear signs of intense psychological distress on fur farms. Psychosis-related behaviours like endlessly circling their cages, continually nodding their heads for hours at a time, self mutilation, and even cannibalism are all too common.

Too, these cramped conditions cause health crises and rapid disease spread: an issue brought to the forefront of many of our minds at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which 17 million mink in Denmark were slaughtered, due to an outbreak of the virus which had begun to spread to humans.

The impact of fur on the planet

While the inherent cruelty of the fur industry is reason enough to avoid fur for the conscious consumer, sustainability is always a critical factor to consider whenever we talk about fashion. While the animal fur industry refers to itself as the “natural fur” industry, evoking green, eco-friendly thoughts, these claims are little more than greenwashing. In fact, a fur industry advertisement which claimed fur was “eco-friendly” and “natural” was banned after being declared “strongly misleading” by French advertising authorities.

Climate impact

As fur is promoted as “natural”, it’s often assumed that it must be climate-friendly. However, factory farming is a resource intensive, carbon emitting process—and fur production is no different. Due to the emissions on factory farms and throughout the fur supply chain, a single fox fur pelt can have a climate impact equal to as much as 83kg of CO2e.

And while fossil-fuel derived, virgin synthetic faux fur isn’t an ideal solution, even this material has a far reduced climate impact compared to animal fur. An independent study comparing a faux fur and mink fur coat climate impacts—including hypothetical end-of-life incineration—showed the mink fur coat to have a CO2e footprint nearly 250kg higher.

Factory-farm pollution

Animals farmed for their fur are almost all carnivorous, and are fed enormous amounts in order to reach slaughter weight. Some animals are fed even more, and are selectively bred to be so heavy in order to produce more skin and fur for profit, that they have bent feet and difficulty walking. Not only is this cruel, but the amount of feed required on fur farms is wasteful and inefficient. To produce one kilogram of fur, made from the skins of 11 animals, a whopping 563kg of feed must be produced.

The faeces produced on fur farms is an environmental concern, too. Fur factory-farming is a serious and significant cause of ammonia and phosphorus emissions, caused by this faecal build up. These emissions can also lead to eutrophication, a process which can in turn create aquatic “dead zones” that kill marine life.

Biodegradability and toxicity

Fur might be natural when it’s on animals, but for skins to be made into wearable materials that don’t rot in our closets, they must be “dressed”. Fur “dressing” is similar to leather “tanning”. Even according to industry research shared and funded by initiatives like Sustainable Fur, processed fur is not effectively biodegradable, even if it is undyed. Some of the fur samples in the industry funded study broke down just 6.6%, even in controlled conditions.

Some of the substances used in fur dressing include chromium and formaldehyde, alongside other heavy metals. These substances have been found on tested fur products sold around the world, and if a fur garment was attempted to be composted, these chemicals could harm soil health.

The impact of fur on people

Fur-dressing health impacts

If substances used in fur-dressing harm the planet, it’s probably not surprising that they harm the people working in the fur-dressing industry, too. An extensive report from ACTAsia found that “the surfactants, solvents, acids, tannins, fungicides, dyes, and bleaches [used in fur dressing] subject industry workers to a risk of acute and chronic conditions, ranging from skin complaints to eye irritation, cancer, and even death”. Many workers in fur production hotspots work unprotected, with 33 toxic chemicals that are banned across Europe.

There is even evidence that wearing fur with high levels of these substances can harm human health. Fur product testing across numerous countries have found garments to be “substantially contaminated with hazardous chemicals at levels breaching legal industry standards”. Some tested products were sold for babies to wear, while others showed carcinogenic substances to be recorded as 250 times higher than the legal limit.

Mental health impacts

While research specific to the fur industry has yet to be completed, broader studies show that those who work jobs slaughtering animals are at risk of facing perpetration-induced stress disorder. Similar to PTSD, those suffering with PITS face symptoms such as anxiety, panic, depression, increased paranoia, a sense of disintegration, dissociation, or amnesia. These struggles are considered “psychological consequences” of the act of killing, and causing trauma to other living creatures—trauma which then manifests internally. Numerous personal stories from those working in slaughtering jobs reflect this research. It’s very possible that these impacts afflict those working in the fur industry, too.

I spent ten years working for the fur trade, and in that time I visited fur farms across the globe so I’ve seen the reality of fur farming…I no longer had the conviction that what I was doing was right—defending what is indefensible. I agree fully that the fur trade is out of time.

Mike Moser – former CEO of the British Fur Trade Association

Mike Moser, former CEO of the British Fur Trade Association who also previously worked at the International Fur Federation where he visited many fur farms across five continents, explains his regrets working in the industry: “I spent ten years working for the fur trade, and in that time I visited fur farms across the globe so I’ve seen the reality of fur farming… I would come home to Barney, my labrador, who I loved dearly, and realise that he wasn’t that much different in size to some of the animals I saw languishing on fur farms, and the thought of him being treated like that was just unthinkable… I no longer had the conviction that what I was doing was right—defending what is indefensible. One of my main regrets is that I didn’t leave earlier… I agree fully that the fur trade is out of time.”

People who no longer want to work in the problematic industry need support to move beyond it, and a number of governments are stepping in to make this happen.

More ethical and sustainable alternatives to fur

While alternatives to fur are not a necessary part of a well-rounded and fashion-forward wardrobe, the option to wear something aesthetically similar without harming animals or the planet we share is a good one to have. Today, innovation in the next-gen fur alternative space is only growing. Here are some of the best options that are currently available:

• Distressed denim: While it might seem a little far-fetched, this fur alternative was invented and popularised by Ukrainian designers Tiziano Guardini and Ksenia Shnaider, using repurposed and landfill-diverted denim. Fraying out the denim fibres, a fluffy look can be created.
• Recycled faux fur: Making use of what is already here is an important part of ensuring a more circular fashion system. A number of post-consumer recycled synthetic faux furs are available today. Some, like one being created by ECOPEL, even make use of once polluting plastics that are recovered from the ocean.
• GACHA: This is the first animal fur alternative claimed to be 100% biodegradable and compostable, first released in 2022.
• Partly bio-based faux fur: While not perfect, materials like KOBA bridge the gap between virgin synthetic faux fur and bio-based alternatives. These materials are part plant-based, and part synthetic, creating a far lower environmental impact—even if it can be improved.  

Learn more about sustainable and ethical materials

The post Is Fur In Fashion Ethical or Sustainable? appeared first on Good On You.

When we talk about the ethics of wearing leather, wool, cashmere, silk, and other animal-derived materials, usually, we think of the animals those materials are made of—as we should. However, humans working in fashion’s animal supply chains are often harmed far more than we may first realise.

Humans are technically animals too, and we have more in common with non-human animals than we have differences. Most importantly, we’re all sentient beings who think and feel! Because of this crucial similarity, some advocate the importance of vegan fashion and animal rights, and others speak out against exploitative and unethical labour practices that hurt humans. But what about when these issues become intertwined? What about the people who work in the supply chains that transform animals into materials? What is their experience like? Let’s break down some of the human rights issues in animal-derived material supply chains and how we can support a more just fashion system for all.

Slaughterhouse workers

Slaughterhouse workers are part of many fashion supply chains, though we mightn’t think of them when we ask “Who made my clothes?” Since animal-derived materials like leather, down, and others are not by-products but profitable income streams for the fashion industry—even the wool industry is a part of a slaughtering system—sadly, when buying clothing made of animals, we’re almost always contributing to the funding of slaughterhouses.

No one really wants to work in a slaughterhouse, as most of us can’t bear the thought of hurting an animal, let alone killing them. So, vulnerable communities are left to do it. Across the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and many other places, a large portion of these workers are migrants, undocumented people, people of colour, people with less access to education, and refugees. In Canada, refugees have even been offered ‘express entry’ away from danger if they agree to work inside a slaughterhouse as there is a lack of people willing to do the work. The leather in our shoes or bags is taken from dead cattle by these slaughterhouse workers, and there are many ways this impacts them, both physically and mentally.

The mental and physical tolls of the job

Working in a slaughterhouse is dangerous. Serious injuries are common, with the Health and Safety Executive labelling UK abattoirs as an industry at the ‘top end’ of its ‘concern level’. Human Rights Watch referred to US slaughterhouse work as the most dangerous factory job in the country. Slaughtering lines are increasingly fast and have even caused some worker deaths. And during the COVID-19 crisis, workers have been disproportionately infected with the virus while facing unjust and illegally poor work conditions.

Unsurprisingly, working in an industry that is fuelled by the killing of animals can take a mental toll on the people in it, too. Many slaughterhouse workers have suffered perpetration-induced stress disorder, considered by the Yale Global Health Review as the “psychological consequences of the act of killing.” Symptoms include drug and alcohol abuse, anxiety, depression, paranoia, and dissociation. Essentially, it’s like PTSD but comes about due to being the “direct reason for another being’s trauma.” These conditions are sometimes linked to suicidal tendencies by workers and even increased violent crime rates against surrounding communities.

Cruelty-free products on the rise

Fortunately, there are plenty of materials that are not born of slaughter-based supply chains. Whether it’s an organic cotton knit or a cactus leather bag, the options available today are continually growing! According to Lyst’s Conscious Fashion Report, searches for ‘vegan leather’ have risen by 69% year on year, while searches for real fur have declined 8% year by year. We may have a cruelty-free fashion system sooner than we realise!

Farm workers

If we go farther back into the supply chains behind animal-derived materials, we find living animals and the places they are kept and raised until they are killed. For ducks whose feathers end up in down jackets, these are usually factory farms where they do not have access to sunlight or water they can properly bathe in. For sheep and cattle in the wool, sheepskin, and leather industries, it’s pasture, and then, often feedlots. So what’s it like to be a human working in these places, with these animals?

The reality of farm life for people and animals

To answer this question, we have to understand some more of what goes on in farms that we aren’t always aware of. Many animals face painful and brutal treatment, for example, tail docking or horn disbudding. Neither of these painful procedures requires pain relief by law. Farm workers—not the people who own the farm and call the shots—perform these sad tasks. One farm worker named Toni, who grew up on sheep farms in Australia producing wool and meat, told Collective Fashion Justice, “It’s hard to say what was most confronting about working on the farm. We are brought up with the death and abuse of animals… I did ask once about the lambs limping off after mulesing [where their skin is sliced off their backside]. My heart broke. The farmer’s reply, ‘they’re just stupid sheep.'”

Another farmer, Jay Wilde, who grew up in farming and took over his Dad’s cattle farm in the United Kingdom, said he had to “steel himself” to send the animals he had connected with to the slaughterhouse, and that “you couldn’t help thinking, ‘do they know what’s really in store for them?’ and wondering if they knew that you would betray their trust in you.'” Jay transitioned into plant-based farming and shared his story in an award-winning short film.

But the issues facing farm workers are not only mental. According to Fashion Revolution’s ‘Out of Sight’ report, “Cattle ranching in Brazil accounts for more than 60% of the nation’s Dirty List—a list of employers that are linked to labour trafficking, debt bondage, and other forms of forced labour.” Brazil is one of the top producers of cattle skins that are tanned and produced into leather. The report stated that similar “poor working conditions, labour trafficking, and instances of forced labour” are documented across some communities in Paraguay and Vietnam and their leather industries. Many fashion brands aren’t transparent about where the skins they use come from initially—nor where they were finished or tanned—making these problems even more complex and challenging to untangle if not avoiding leather.

Transparency is increasing

Injustice often thrives in darkness, and so it is very positive that transparency is increasing all across the fashion industry. Technologies like FibreTrace are working to improve fashion’s transparency through supply chains. Similarly, Fashion Revolution continues to highlight issues in the industry and harness the power of people for good. Remember, what we choose to buy, not buy, and say to brands, is important.

Injustice often thrives in darkness, and so it is very positive that transparency is increasing all across the fashion industry…Remember, what we choose to buy, not buy, and say to brands, is important.

Shearers and herders

Those paid to shear sheep for the wool industry are not paid per hour of work but instead, based on the amount of wool in weight or the number of sheep they shear. These kinds of payment rates are similar to a piece rate that garment workers face, where they are paid per garment they sew, rather than for their time working. This can result in workers being paid below the minimum wage, and because of the incentive for speed, it also can mean higher rates of cuts and injuries for sheep and workers alike. The industry faces high rates of work-related deaths, injuries, and illnesses.

Shearing sheds are often fairly small sheds out in the bush. This results in the facilities for workers being below what is acceptable to offer any person. For example, one shearer told the ABC that safety conditions were “just getting progressively worse” and stated that workers often didn’t have access to a toilet, running water or proper safety equipment. The same ABC report noted that some shearers recognise a drug problem in the industry and that the Australian Workers Union has received two dozen reports of illegal payment in drugs and cash.

Not-so-luxurious cashmere

Meanwhile, herders working in the cashmere industry can face a different kind of struggle. Cashmere has become increasingly cheap over the years, and this has come at the expense of goats, the people herding them, and their land. Herders in major cashmere production country Mongolia are often underpaid and overworked by those they supply. The growing cashmere industry has also contributed heavily to the destruction of native Mongolian grasslands, with nomadic herders recognising that their work contributes to this devastation but that they have little choice due to the high demand for the fibre in fashion. One nomadic herder, Bish, was documented saying, “Yes, I know my goats are harmful to our grassland and the more we have, the worse our land becomes. I get that. But this is how we earn money. All I can do is watch my grasslands disappear.”

Community-driven activism in fashion

Don’t despair, though—reports suggest that 65% of these grasslands can be recovered with sustainable action. And while this issue is complex, it seems that a form of community-driven, supported transition away from cashmere could benefit people like Bish. It’s crucial to know our fashion activism can extend beyond shopping ethically and into supporting and getting involved with grassroots work to support communities around the world.

Silk industry workers

While considered a luxurious material, there are often human rights violations behind silk, a material produced from the cocoons of caterpillars usually boiled alive. Across the largest silk producing countries of China, India, and Uzbekistan, forms of forced labour are documented as serious problems.

A report from Kashmir, India, found that most silkworm rearers suffered from issues including back pain, allergies, respiratory problems, eye irritation, and headaches due to their work. Other silk workers, who work with boiling water to unravel cocoons, are commonly burned and even experience secondary infections, like dermatitis. Work is often performed in the sericulture (silk production) industry in small, poorly ventilated spaces without proper health and safety equipment, further contributing to such problems.

Child labour is still common in the industry

In India, reports look into bonded child labour and its prevalence in the industry. In one piece of Hindu coverage, a 12-year-old silk weaver named Mehboob states that he has “learnt nothing else” in his life other than how to perform his work. Of course, children do not begin working in any industry unless other issues are at play. In the same report, an adult states that “All child weavers come from poor families. If they do not work, who will feed them?” India’s caste system, which places a hierarchy on human lives, commonly plays into the silk industry’s child labour problems, with ‘low-caste’ children at a higher risk of being forced into work.

In Uzbekistan, children as young as five years old have been reported to work from 4 AM until midnight picking the mulberry leaves fed to silkworms. At the same time, other forms of forced and illegal labour take place. The government in Uzbekistan controls the silk industry, and officials reportedly often threaten silk farmers with loss of land, violence, and prosecution if production targets are not met.

Innovative silk alternatives step up to the plate

There are more and more alternatives to silk being used by designers today, and many of these are far less tied up in complicated and murky animal supply chains like these—and they’re free from harm to silkworms!

Tannery workers

People working in the tanneries that chemically transform sheep, cattle, and other animal skins into leather are often people of colour from countries including China and India. Because of the steep environmental impacts of leather tanning, these workers battle something known as ‘environmental racism’, with 95% of US tanneries now operating overseas, where they pollute communities and the surrounding environment. Among these dangerous and polluted conditions in tanneries, sometimes children are made to work, as in the silk industry.

Living and working with cancer-causing chemicals

Tannery workers primarily deal with carcinogenic chemicals like formaldehyde, arsenic and chromium—with which 90% of leather is tanned. Carcinogens cause cancer, so tannery workers suffer cancer at high rates due to their exposure to these chemicals. In fact, communal areas around places like tanneries in the top tanning country China have been referred to as “cancer villages.” Workers and their communities face serious health hazards due to chemical pollution that runs through waterways used for drinking and bathing by both humans and other species. The Toxic Price of Leather, a short documentary film released by the Pulitzer Centre, looks more deeply into some of these issues.

Small positive steps

On a small scale, the use of chemicals causing harm to these communities is changing and being questioned, which is positive. Luckily, there are also alternatives to leather that avoid the problem altogether!

What we can do as conscious consumers

Recognising the human rights issues in animal-derived fashion supply chains means recognising that injustices are often intertwined. People who work for so little pay in industries built upon the exploitation and slaughter of animals are exploited in turn. This is not a coincidence but an inevitable reality of a fashion industry that typically accepts any form of oppression as a part of the production of clothing. For this same reason, the injustices facing garment workers are rooted in both racism and patriarchy. It is essential that we consider this information, what oppression really means, and how it manifests within the fashion industry so that we can decide what we want to support when we buy clothing and what we would rather avoid.

Not only can we empower ourselves with information that guides our choices around what we choose to wear or not wear, but we can use our voice to make a change:

• We can ask brands about who made their clothes and what they are made of.
• We can ask brands for greater transparency about what this means, who it impacts, and how.
• We can educate ourselves and spread information about animal supply chains in fashion, growing the community of people who can make positive change in this area.
• We can opt for materials made outside of animal supply chains, from plants, recycled materials, and other innovative sources.
• We can share our opinions with brands about the more ethical practices and materials we would rather see and wear, too. A great way to do this is through the Your Voice function of the Good on You app, which you can find at the bottom of each brand page!

Our voices as citizens who get dressed are powerful because fashion brands need us more than we need them. We can use education as a tool to create a total ethics fashion system. Are you with us?

The post The Human Rights Issues Behind Fashion’s Animal Supply Chains appeared first on Good On You.

By-product vs. co-product

As animal rights issues become more important to consumers, brands are marketing their animal products as “ethically sourced”. Much of the time, such brands state that the leather they use comes as a “by-product of the meat industry”. The assumption that follows this one-liner is that in buying something made from a “by-product”, you’re reducing waste and not financially supporting the industry which it comes from.

The term “by-product” means an “incidental or secondary product made in the manufacture or synthesis of something else”. Plastic, like that which is used in plastic shopping bags, started as a by-product of oil refining. The pineapple leaves that are used to create Piñatex, the leather alternative material, are a by-product of fruit farming. At least, they were: until they became profitable.

At a certain point, a “by-product” becomes a “co-product”. The distinction is that co-products are desirable secondary goods.

The distinction is that co-products are desirable secondary goods. These are sold for the sake of profit. Piñatex is a great example of the power of by- to co-products, as the manufacturing of the material has led to pineapple farmers in rural communities having an additional income stream. This is a clear, and positive example of the way in which co-products can act as a sort of “subsidy” for another industry.

What about leather?

Meat and Livestock Australia defines skins to be made into leather as a co-product of the meat industry, alongside other co-products like animal hearts, organs, and hooves. One particularly profitable co-product is foetal blood from unborn calves, who are removed from pregnant cows at slaughter. This co-product fetches up to $700AUD for 500mL as “Foetal Bovine Serum” used in pharmaceuticals—clearly, a source of great income.

The global leather goods market is valued at $95.4 billion USD, and is set to reach $128.61 billion USD by 2022 if nothing changes now. Animal skins are sold and made into leather goods for profit, not for waste reduction. In fact, the RSPCA states that bobby calves slaughtered in the dairy industry have “valuable hides [used] for leather”. This is a clear example of an animal not profiting one industry (as male calves will never produce milk to sell), becoming profitable for another only once killed.

Whether a cow whose skin is turned into a wallet came from the meat or dairy industry, their skin is sold for a profit. It follows that buying leather is financially supporting the slaughter of animals, just as buying meat or dairy is.

The meat, dairy, and leather industries are intrinsically linked. Don Oshman, the publisher of Hidenet, an online leather and hide market report, stated on Business of Fashion that many “European luxury bag makers use calf skin, and people aren’t eating much veal these days… [so] more calves are being raised specifically for their skin… raised in a pen and never [going] outside so its skin is blemish-free”. This aligns with the RSPCA’s statement that here in Australia, “vealer” calves usually grow up on specialist calf-rearing properties in group sheds, where their skins are worth good money.

In Australia, there are supposedly high “animal welfare standards” relating to the legal standard practices and slaughter of animals. The legal standard practices for cows and bulls raised in the meat and dairy industries, so too the leather industry, are horrific, and you can read about the specifics over at PETA. Whether buying meat or leather, these practices are part of that product’s supply chain in Australia (though it is worth noting that the vast majority of cow skins comes from India, China and Brazil, and labelling laws mean that even leather which says “made in Italy”, for example, is likely just “finished” in Italy, the cow being raised and slaughtered elsewhere). Shockingly, these practices (and worse) are standard the world over.

If consumers were to stop buying veal and calfskin products, the dairy industry would lose profit. If people were to stop buying cow skin leather, the meat industry would lose profit. In the same way, more consumption of these products means more profit and more production—just as it does when supporting (or not) fast fashion, synthetic, natural, or organic fibres, and innovative leather alternative materials. What we do or do not personally choose to support has an impact, and so considering where our “dollar vote” goes is important.

If you are also concerned about the impact of animal vs. other leather options on people and the planet, too, we have covered the hidden costs of leather before.

Learn more about sustainable and ethical materials.

Author bio:

Emma Håkansson is the founding director of Collective Fashion Justice, a non-profit dedicated to the creation of a total ethics fashion system. She is an author and writer, with her written work and research on ethics, sustainability, animal rights and fashion being published across Vogue Business, Earth Island Journal, Fashion Journal, and more. Håkansson is also an award-winning film-maker, with her short film Willow and Claude winning Best Documentary at the Fashion Film Festival in Amsterdam. She has consulted on sustainable fashion legislation, worked with brands as they transitioned forward from animal-derived materials, and is based in Melbourne, Australia. Follow her on Instagram and check out her website.

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