Down Drives Fashion’s Animal Material Shift, Four Paws Finds
Four Paws' assessment of 332 brands finds wider certification commitments but few efforts to reduce animal-derived material use.
Fashion’s efforts to reduce animal-derived materials have largely centered on what goes inside its jackets.
Only 26 of 321 brands using animal-derived materials—8 percent—had committed to, or taken steps toward, reducing that use, according to Four Paws’ Animal Welfare in Fashion 2026 report. Commitments to replace virgin down with recycled or animal-free alternatives accounted for 85 percent of the reduction commitments identified.
The animal welfare organization assessed 332 brands in its Wear It Kind Directory, examining fur use, wool sourcing, live plucking and efforts to reduce animal-derived materials. Its findings point to a narrow focus on insulation, with few brands setting measurable targets to reduce animal-derived materials across their businesses.
Four Paws found that 14 percent of assessed brands had eliminated virgin down or taken action beyond certification to address live plucking risks. The report identifies H&M Group brands, Chloé and TFG London’s Hobbs, Phase Eight and Whistles among those introducing bans on virgin down. Superdry, Ted Baker and Boden were among those it said had ended down use altogether.
Jessica Medcalf, who oversees animal welfare in textiles at Four Paws, attributed the shift to the availability of alternatives and growing awareness of what the organization considers gaps in down certification.
“Brands are not simply relying on the natural attributes of down to create high-performance products,” Medcalf said. “Rather, they are seeking a competitive edge through innovation, developing increasingly advanced insulation technologies and performance features.”
She pointed to brands promoting animal-free fills for their ability to dry quickly and retain warmth when wet.
Alternatives including PrimaLoft, G-Loft, Sorona and Thermore Ecodown accounted for 45 percent of innovation-related rating improvements in the report’s reduction category.
Recycled down remains an animal-derived material. The distinction is whether brands continue buying newly produced down or use material already in circulation.
Whether those sourcing changes signal a broader decline in virgin down consumption remains unclear.
“Most brands still don’t disclose purchasing or volume data on virgin down use or animal-derived material use overall for that matter,” Medcalf told Sourcing Journal.
The directory assesses publicly disclosed policies and sourcing information, rather than independently verifying conditions on farms. Four Paws said the assessment cutoff was July 31, 2026, and that it gave all brands an opportunity to review their ratings before publication.
Its coverage expanded from 256 brands in 2024 to 332 this year, complicating comparisons. However, Four Paws supplied additional figures showing that reduction commitments among the brands assessed in 2024 increased from 3 percent that year to 10 percent in 2026, largely through commitments to end virgin down use or down use altogether.
Certification remains the more common sourcing approach. Among brands known to use down, 61 percent—118 brands—reported using exclusively certified down, while another 23 had committed to making that transition.
Four Paws’ concerns center on parent farms, which breed the birds supplying down production.
“While current standards prohibit live plucking, traceability and oversight requirements do not consistently extend to all parent farms associated to a down supply chain,” Medcalf said. “As a result, some parent farms may fall outside the scope of routine certification auditing and this is a key concern.”
Textile Exchange’s Responsible Down Standard already prohibits live plucking and force-feeding. Its certification procedures require annual visits to at least 10 percent of goose parent farms, rising to at least 50 percent where certifiers suspect live plucking or know it occurs in the region.
“Confirmation visits to a sample of parent farms are not, in our view, a proportionate response to a known high-risk area of the supply chain,” Medcalf said.
The organization wants mandatory audits throughout production, including parent farms, fattening farms and slaughterhouses.
In wool, the report found that 91 percent of wool-using brands preferred material free of mulesing, which Four Paws calls live lamb cutting. The surgical procedure removes skin around a sheep’s hindquarters to reduce the risk of flystrike.
Only 64 of the 318 wool-using brands assessed—20 percent—were sourcing exclusively certified wool free of the practice, Four Paws told Sourcing Journal.
The organization also said commitments to source fully certified mulesing-free wool by 2030 rose from 68 percent to 70 percent among the brands assessed in 2024. The lower figure of 64 percent across the expanded 2026 sample reflected the inclusion of a broader range of brands; the original group had drawn heavily from companies already committed to ending mulesing.
Fur had the broadest policy rejection: 82 percent of assessed brands communicated strict prohibitions. The report placed Dior, Fendi and Louis Vuitton among the lowest-rated luxury brands, citing continued fur use without commitments to end it. Stella McCartney, Another Tomorrow and Chloé led the segment.
The gap between adopting alternatives and committing to wider reductions also appeared in the U.S. findings. Twenty-one of the 47 brands assessed—45 percent—earned a yellow rating in the reduction category, driven by investment in or use of next-generation materials. None earned the highest, green rating.
Testing an alternative does not necessarily mean a brand is buying less wool, leather or down, Medcalf said.
“In some cases, brands may increase their use of animal-derived materials while simultaneously piloting alternative options.”
Originally published by wwd.com. Syndicated material does not necessarily reflect the views of Glamour Canada.
