ON 53 FARM

Hugh Attard and Dan Baker of ‘Gostwyk’ at Uralla hosted a visit by Alexandre Capelli and Cathelijne Klomp from LVMH to learn about animal welfare, environmental and sustainability issues.

The head of sustainability from world leader in luxury LVMH – which owns high profile fashion brands including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Lora Piana and Givenchy – recently visited Australia to meet woolgrowers and learn more about practices to combat flystrike.

eadquartered in Paris, luxury goods of sustainability issues, with a strong focus and they are all valuable and good reasons. Hgroup Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton on animal welfare. Taking care of the animals is something (LVMH) is a world leader in luxury. In June, LVMH representatives travelled that we really saw during our visits,” Cathelijne said. Its fashion business includes many famous from France to visit a number of farms in the New England region of NSW to learn luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Alexandre said he found the visit very more about animal welfare and practices to Givenchy, Céline, Marc Jacobs, Fendi, and insightful because they “saw that mulesing combat flystrike (‘Congi’ T.A. Field Estates Lora Piana which is particularly well known is not a black and white issue, there were Pty Ltd, Woolbrook; ‘Nerstane’, Woolbrook; for its use of wool. In addition to its fashion a lot of grey shades”, but he thinks that if business, LVMH is also strong in perfumes ‘Gostwyk’, Uralla; and CSIRO Armidale). woolgrowers do mules then they should do and cosmetics, wine and spirits and watches Alexandre Capelli leads the sustainability so with pain relief. and jewellery. work across all LVMH brands, and Cathelijne Klomp works across all LVMH “We have more and more demanding The company has 4,374 stores across the brands advising on raw materials and their requirements about animal welfare and, world and 145,000 employees. It had a supply chains. while I understand that mulesing might revenue in 2017 equivalent to about A$25 billion from its fashion business alone, a “Our target is to implement environmental be useful in certain locations of Australia, growth of more than 20% from 2016. and sustainable practices in our wool supply it should be done with pain relief and chain,” said Alexandre. “But to do that, it's anaesthesia.” Global apparel businesses are increasingly very important to be able to go in the field focused on sustainability and traceability, and understand what the practices on farms Cathelijne noted that although learning covering a wide range of issues, such really are – and that’s why we were here. about animal welfare was the main as the environment, labour conditions, reason for their visit, LVMH tries to focus animal welfare, product safety and life “Consumers are asking more and more for on all sustainability topics, including cycle assessment. traceability and transparency. They are environmental and social issues, and the asking more and more for animal welfare. livelihood of farmers. These companies are paying closer attention It's definitely a trend that I don’t think is to the raw ingredients and processes going away.” “We understand that there is another required at every step of their supply dimension that is highly important to us, Cathelijne said that, although they tried to chains, to make sure they are responsible which is the welfare not only of the animal come without any preconceptions, prior to and sustainable. but also of the farmer him or herself, the trip they had thought that mulesing especially given the situation at the moment For wool, the spotlight largely focuses on might not be a technique beneficial to animal welfare, but also the environment animal welfare. But their trip showed the in Australia with many areas affected by and life cycle analysis. issue is not as clear-cut as they had thought. drought,” Cathelijne added.

Each year, Peta Slack-Smith, AWI’s General “After visiting the three farmers, who each MORE INFORMATION Manager of Corporate Affairs and Market had different practices, we now understand Hear more from Access leads a delegation (including a that the animals’ best welfare is the objective Alexandre and Cathelijne in the second woolgrower and a researcher) to meet with of all the farmers, whether they are mulesing half of Episode 46 of The Yarn key brands and retailers, retail associations, or not mulesing. They all have different podcast, available at www.wool. welfare groups and NGOs to discuss a range justifications for their choice of practice, com/podcast.