Animal trafficking is one of the main forms of smuggling around the world, it favors the expansion of invasive species and poses one of the greatest threats to the planet's biodiversity. Exotic animal fur products made a comeback to catwalks in 2019, and their use is a controversial issue among animal rights groups.
Animal rights advocates may have convinced many fashion houses and their followers to abandon the use of exotic species in their products, but snake, crocodile, and lizard skins are still in high demand. In recent collections, they have returned to the catwalks of Paris, London, and New York.
In a huge victory for snakes, ostriches, and other animals, Macy's, American chain of high-end department stores has confirmed, after talks with PETA, that it is no longer selling exotic skins. Thanks to PETA's work exposing the breeding and killing of animals for fashion, the exotic fur industry is diminishing.
Macy's Speaks Out for Animals
Macy's Inc. already has a ban on fur sales at all of its subsidiaries, and now it will save snakes, lizards, alligators, ostriches, and other animals with its ban on exotic fur sales on its website and at its 445 U.S. locations.
Department stores and fashion brands favor compassion more than ever and are abandoning products made with exotic fur. Macy's joins other major companies that have banned the sale of exotic fur, including Chanel, Diane von Furstenberg, Hugo Boss, Paul Smith, Selfridges, Victoria Beckham, Vivienne Westwood, Burberry, and Calvin Klein. With this victory, Macy's is protecting exotic animals from being confined to filthy, cramped cages or concrete pits on farms for their entire lives before suffering a painful death.
Macy’s Goes Circular
What’s more, Macy’s provided an update on its long-term sustainability objectives last September, specifically its plans to boost a more circular economy. The department store launched Mission Every One, a social purpose platform that reiterated its commitment to working toward a more equitable and sustainable future for all.
Highlighting its plan of environmental sustainability goals, Macy's Inc. introduced this new initiative that promotes circularity throughout its value chain, seeking to extend the useful life of a product.
As part of this project, in early 2021 Macy's joined forces with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, focusing on accelerating and enabling the transition to a global circular economy. It also teamed up with FABSCRAP, a nonprofit organization in New York that helps ensure that fabric waste, an inevitable part of the design and development process, is responsibly reused and recycled and carries Global Recycled Standard and Recycled Claim Standard certification.
Macy's plans to increase recycling in its stores to 80% and will implement new sustainable materials such as synthetic cotton and 100% wood materials by 2030, and plans to increase the use of GOTS-certified organic cotton.
In addition, the company intends to include at least 5 thousand pages of sustainable products on its website. Therefore, Macy's has set out to reduce the environmental impact of its operations, which is why it’ll manage waste from 727 stores in its logistics network in the supply chain.