Sustainable Fashion and Animal Welfare: Non-Violence as a Business Strategy

This chapter highlights an unexplored aspect of corporate social responsibility, that is animal violence and welfare. According to (Dadds, M. R., Turner, C. M., & McAloon, J. (2002). Developmental links between cruelty to animals and human violence. The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 35(3), 363–382), cruelty against animals can be a predictor of future violence. If one wants to avoid violence in general, one has to think about ways to prevent violence against animals. No longer accepting violence against animals in the fashion industry, a sector that has a big impact on youth, can be a major step in the reduction of violence.

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse how non-violence against animals is integrated as a business strategy into the fashion industry and how companies are trying to influence each other. The methodological approach is based on qualitative comparative studies between small and large firms. Five cases are selected taking multiple levels of corporate sustainability into account: JBC, ARFshop, Doekjes en Broekjes, Bellerose and Fake Fur.

The research shows that large companies do more to benefit human welfare, whereas the smaller ones attach more importance to the environment. Yet all companies agreed that long-term relationships are crucial in partnerships and that the process of exchanging information is valuable in order to act in a transparent way. They are all aware that animal welfare and environmental welfare will gain importance in the future, and therefore something must be done about the impact companies have. Hence, they are implementing strategies at their own pace to benefit the welfare of animals. A change in mind set is growing, slowly but certainly and partnerships with NGOs can benefit this transition process.