Introduction
At Vivienne Westwood, animal welfare practices have long been integrated into our day-to-day operations and supply chain management.
Animal rearing and the subsequent sourcing of by-products can have diverse impacts that need to be considered during the life cycle of a product, and it intersects with broader environmental concerns to consider; from biodiversity to deforestation and loss of natural habitats, water pollutions chemical management and health of workers in the supply chain.
The VW Group is committed to monitoring usage of animal-derived materials and sourcing along its supply chain.
Scope
This policy outlines the Group procedures and ethos for managing animal-derived materials and the related conditions these should be sourced under. An extensive approach is being rolled out with the goal of covering all product categories within the Group.
Our Approach
1) General Principles
- We are committed to upholding the highest animal welfare standards, based on
the internationally recognised ‘Five Freedoms’ of animal welfare. The Five Freedoms of animal welfare are a set of guidelines for the treatment of farm animals that were codified by the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) in 1979 and reiterated in 2009:
- Freedom from hunger and thirst, by ready access to fresh water and a diet for full health and vigour.
- Freedom from discomfort, by providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area.
- Freedom from pain, injury or disease, by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
- Freedom to express (most) normal behaviour, by providing sufficient space, proper facilities
and company of the animal’s own kind.
- Freedom from fear and distress, by providing conditions and treatment that avoid mental suffering.
- Materials of animal origin should be obtained from legal sources. Requirements put forth by the CITES agreement or the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria assessment are critical to achieve this objective.
- Capture, maintaining, breeding, raising, transportation, handling and slaughter of animals must be undertaken with minimal impacts on the environment and quality of life of animals, and in compliance with applicable local animal welfare, human and labour rights and environmental laws and regulations as well as internationally accepted standards, for example World Organisation for Animal Health.
2) Specific Principles for Animal Derived Materials
We do not permit the use of:
- Any endangered species; we will never knowingly source any species listed on the CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and IUCN (International Union for Conservation Red) lists of endangered species.
- Animal testing; please refer to our chemical management policy for an overview of our product testing practices.
- Animal fur including rabbit hair (e.g. Angora), Mongolian lambs’ fur, Karakul (also referred to as Astrakhan/Broadtail/Persian lamb/Swakara/Krimmer) or any other hair from animals reared in cages for their hair.
- Leather or skin from exotic and wild caught animals including reptile skins,
crocodile and alligator.
- Leather from cattle reared in the Amazon biome.
- Leather of kangaroo origin.
- Leather of horse origin.
- Hair from wild animals e.g. vicuña.
- Shell from vulnerable or endangered species.
We permit the use of the following under the conditions outlined below:
- Certain types of leather; cow, sheep, goat, pig, buffalo and fish.
- Virgin wool fibre and recycled wool fibre.
- Virgin cashmere fibre and recycled cashmere fibre.
- Yak fibre.
- Mohair.
- Feathers.
- Silk.
- Animal derived horn.
All leather must come from farms with high animal welfare standards, preferably accredited/certified by a recognised body.
Suppliers of Brazilian leather should provide assurances via our leather traceability form that hides used for our products are from cattle raised outside the Amazon Biome, due to deforestation issues in the Amazon rainforest.
Fish leather should have appropriate traceability in place as proof of being a by-product of the fish processing industry and originate from responsibly farmed sources, accredited/certified by a recognised body.
We aim to source all virgin animal hair from farms with high animal welfare standards in line with requirements outlined in this policy, preferably accredited/certified by a recognised body. This includes, but is not limited to no live-plucking and no restraints during shearing or hair collection.
Virgin animal hair used in our products must be gathered, clipped, shorn or combed/groomed only.
We encourage the sourcing of alternatives to virgin animal hair e.g. recycled wool and recycled cashmere, to minimise the risk of animal welfare and biodiversity issues.
We require the use of mulesing-free wool. Wool originating from Australia must be declared as ‘non-mulesed’ (NM) or ‘ceased-mulesed’ (CM) in National Wool Declaration (NWD) documentation. This, considering that Australia is the only country where mulesing is currently not banned. Ideally, an appropriate certification should be in place.
We aim to source virgin wool fibres from farms certified to the Responsible Wool Standard (a voluntary global standard that addresses the welfare of sheep and of the land they graze on).
We strive to limit the use of virgin cashmere and where possible source recycled cashmere, due to the negative environmental and social impacts caused by current cashmere production practices in Mongolia and other cashmere producing regions.
Yak wool has positive attributes as these animals are often raised by herders, practicing a nomadic lifestyle and therefore avoiding overgrazing. Hand-combing them is not harmful to the animals.
We aim to source all mohair from farms with high animal welfare standards in place. As an alternative, we encourage recycled mohair.
All feathers used in our products should come from fully traceable sources and from farms with high animal welfare standards.
We do not accept feathers produced using live plucking or force-feeding methods or from endangered/wild-caught birds.
Most of our silk comes from conventional sources. We are always looking for commercially viable, innovative alternatives to conventional silk, so that we can reduce the risk of animal welfare issues in processing. Increasingly, we source organic silk.
Horn used for trims should have appropriate traceability in place to prove being a by-product of the meat industry.
Mother of pearl is sourced mainly for selected styles of our jewellery line. It is a natural material derived from the shells of marine mollusks such as oysters or clams. The Laminated Mother of Pearl used in our jewellery collections is sourced through Lumea in New Zealand, a fishery operating under environmental management standards overseen by the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries. These standards ensure that all harvesting practices meet national sustainability and environmental requirements. The majority of our pearls used for jewellery are glass-based.