OUR MISSION

CIRCUMFAUNA aims to centralize and contextualize research and data regarding the use of animals in fashion, from environmental impacts to emerging technologies and historical information.

CIRCUMFAUNA is an initiative of Collective Fashion Justice, an organization dedicated to creating a total ethics fashion system.

WHY IT MATTERS

Animal materials like leather, fur and wool are some of the most environmentally impactful fibers in the fashion industry, yet popular beliefs about what is “natural” tend to dominate the conversation around sustainable fashion. There is a need to identify and understand these materials as a singular category.

CIRCUMFAUNA is a term coined by Joshua Katcher, author of Fashion Animals (2019) to describe the area of inquiry regarding the use of animals in fashion, from factory farms to the wild. CIRCUMFAUNA is also the category of innovation focused on making animal-derived materials redundant.

Farmed animals and their feed are responsible for 14.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and consume almost one-third of all freshwater in the world today. Animal agriculture is to blame as the leading cause of species extinctions, habitat destruction, and water pollution. The ocean is also under assault from animal farming. In 2019, a 7000 square-mile area larger than the state of Connecticut was declared a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, mainly due to runoff from factory farming.

University of Oxford researchers even reported that the single biggest way each person can reduce our impact on the planet is to choose a vegan diet. But what about our clothing?