Humane Society International’s Farm Animal Welfare and Protection released the “Guide to humane washing,” a resource to support financial institutions in assessing companies’ public-facing animal welfare policies.
Humane washing is a form of greenwashing; it gives a false or misleading impression about a company’s animal welfare policies and practices. This includes labels, websites, formalized sustainability reporting and representations aimed at consumers or any interested parties including investors, partners, regulators and/or the community at large.
To capitalize on the changing market, some companies engage in humane washing to intentionally mislead stakeholders about their animal welfare practices. On the other hand, some companies humane wash unintentionally. Unfortunately, either scenario can result in material risk-and-return implications for financial institutions. Moreover, humane washing has the power to slow or inhibit the wider adoption of meaningful changes to reduce animal suffering and improve farm animals’ quality of life; it does this by advertising basic practices as special attributes and occupying the same market space as producers that go above and beyond to provide a higher level of animal welfare. Interested parties may have every intention of being part of the solution but unwittingly become part of the problem. Humane washing can destroy value, harm brand reputation and, ultimately, contribute to animal suffering.
Common humane washing tactics and techniques include:
Only mentioning the Five Freedoms, the Five Domains, or simply referencing animal welfare
Highlighting different issues or sustainability topics not directly related to animal welfare
Highlighting basic animal husbandry as examples of higher welfare practices
Highlighting certifications attained that are scientifically meaningless for improving animal welfare
Using vague language about which operations, locations or entities have earned certification
Using photos and pictures that depict an ideal welfare system, which differs from actual operations and standards
Failing to make specific, regional, time-bound, public-facing animal welfare commitments and policies as well as provide meaningful progress and updates
Failing to include integrated/contract producers, external suppliers, franchisees and other sourced products within animal welfare policies and procedures
The Guide also includes a table with four different categories to assess public-facing disclosures for all species as well as beef cattle, chickens raised for meat, dairy cattle, egg-laying hens and pigs:
Industry standards/norms ("baseline")
Critical policy inclusions ("critical")
Best practice in public disclosure ("best practice")
Red flags or causes for concern ("red flags")
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Humane Society International is a founding member of the FARMS Initiative.