Animal Welfare in Fashion Report Names the Best and Worst Brands in 2021
FOUR PAWS reports good progress on animal welfare in fashion, but there is still a long way to go
International animal welfare organization FOUR PAWS has launched its second edition of The Animal Welfare in Fashion Report. The report addresses fashion companies and highlights how the industry is performing on animal welfare and what needs to happen to achieve greater progress.
The report names Stella McCartney, Mara Hoffman, and sustainability veterans People Tree and Armedangels among the top-rated brands, while luxury giants Hermès, Fendi, Prada, and Louis Vuitton among the worst rated brands in 2021.
"Best" brands were those with the top 10% of scores and rated "Good" by Good On You for animal welfare. "Worst" brands were those with the lowest 10% of scores in the total sample.
For the report, FOUR PAWS partnered with brand rating platform Good On You and applied their detailed methodology to assess 111 brands from fourteen countries on their progress in animal welfare.
The report shows that while good progress is being made and more brands are addressing animal welfare in 2021, there is a long way to go before the fashion industry can be considered as achieving even a basic level of animal welfare.
The demand for animal-free fashion is rapidly growing, and concern by consumers over animal welfare has only heightened since the COVID-19 pandemic. However, just 32% of brands source certified wool or down, and just over half have an animal welfare policy at all.
Additionally, the report showed that luxury brands particularly are behind the curve when it comes to animal welfare, achieving the lowest category average of just 25%, largely due to their high rate of wildlife exploitation and a general lack of transparency.
Overall, translating policy into action remains the biggest challenge in fashion, thus greater transparency in animal welfare is needed to ensure brands take responsibility for the animals they use.
In under two years, over 1,000,000 supporters around the world have gotten behind our #WearItKind initiative to make fashion more animal-friendly. While we are pleased to see more action taken by brands to improve their animal welfare performance, animals continue to suffer mulesing, live plucking, factory farming and more for fashion. Our report aims to encourage fashion companies to step up, find solutions, and make animal welfare a priority.
Animal Welfare in Fashion Report 2021
FOUR PAWS latest report shows that while good progress is being made fashion brands need to step up for animals. For the second edition of our report we partnered with Good On You to rate 111 international brands on their progress in animal welfare. While the demand for animal-free fashion is rapidly growing, our report shows that most brands still know little about the conditions faced by animals within their supply chains. The good news is that change is happening and 14% of brands included in the 2021 report improved significantly since our last rating.
