Eco-Friendly Means Animal Friendly Too!

“According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, livestock farming contributes more to global warming than total worldwide transportation.”

Because we're an environmentally friendly store, we've always asked our customers to pay attention to the environmental and ethical conditions by which their products are produced. We don't want to sell shoes made by small hands or clothing manufactured from fibres that poison the earth, so it's only logical then that we'd also consider how animals are affected by our products too. Well it's been about a year now since Shift Natural Fashion decided to “go vegan”, so it's probably about time we talked a little bit about why we've made this decision, and about what it means for Shift to be a veg*n store.

Before I go into the details, I just want to clarify that the word “veg*n” refers both to Vegetarians and Vegans. While these definitions usually refer to a persons diet (free of animal ingredients), they also often extend (especially for vegans) to the ingredients in clothing or body care too. The distinction for us isn't about asking our customers to give up their meat, eggs or dairy (although you're more than welcome to make that change if you feel it's right). We really just wanted to make it easier for the existing veg*ns to find what they needed, and to let people know that we support this movement because it's one of the greatest things any person can do for the environment.

Indeed a basic reason a lot of people become vegetarian is to reduce the amount of suffering that's inflicted upon animals. On a more personal level, many people also give up meat to experience the health benefits of a plant based diet. However, the number one reason Shift adopted this principle was because of the huge environmental statement it makes! Factory farmed meat, dairy and eggs use a tremendous amount of resources to be produced.

For example, for every pound of beef you don't consume you save between 3000 and 5000 gallons of water! Also, 16 pounds of grain (fed to a cow) is required to produce just one pound of beef. These facts don't even touch on the waste or environmental destruction that is produced by factory farms. “Waste lagoons” produce greenhouse gases and have spilled into water sources killing thousands of fish.

I could go on and on, but I'll spare you the nasty details and let you do your own research if you're interested. (You can find out more about the environmental benefits of vegetarianism by searching Google for “environmental vegetarian facts”, or this pdf.) The point here isn't to make anybody feel bad about their existing diet, but simply to empower people to think more about the effect they can have. Even just eating less meat makes a big difference.

We had no shortage of good reasons to consider taking the store vegan, especially when both of the managers were proud vegans themselves.
The real inspiration came during a trip to Portland though, when we visited a completely vegan grocery store called “Food Fight”. We knew what it was like to go through ingredient lists while shopping, moving from product to product until finding something that fit. However, everything on these shelves was completely safe, from the “macaroni” to the “marshmallows”. It truly was vegan heaven!

Portland was also the source of another “vegetarian” inspiration in the form of the “Herbivore” clothing company. Although their clothes aren't printed on Hemp fabrics just yet (we'll stay on their case), we figured it was balanced by the fact that they carry a variety of fun veg*n messages, like “Please don't eat birds”, or “Wings are for flying, not frying”. At first, we weren't sure how our customers would respond to some of these vegetarian messages, but luckily people started to catch on quickly that we were the place to find this stuff.

So we were already concerned about the environment, and the “Herbivore” message was beginning to spread. We decided to take things “all the way” by doing our best to create an easy vegan shopping experience .
The change didn't happen all at once of course. We discovered some of our existing products contained ingredients that we wanted to avoid. (For example, we had lip balms and candles with beeswax in them, or body creams that contained emu oils.) We didn't want to just throw these away of course, so it took a few months to gradually phase out those items.

We're still carrying some recycled (wool etc) materials that are in locally designed garments. While we obviously don't want to promote animal based fibres (and we still avoid ALL leather), we also want to remain true to our original environmental ethics. We feel that it's better to reduce/reuse/recycle BEFORE going out and creating new materials. Plus, it's better to buy and support local whenever possible anyways, so we still plan to support local designers that want to use some recycled textiles in their designs.

Also, we occasionally faced disappointments when talking to vendors when their line didn't fit with our “ethics”. (It was especially frustrating when the issue was only something small like a bit of wool felt trim.) However, our perseverance also paid off when manufacturers come back with new line sheets that had an even greater ratio of vegan items. It's exciting when we're able to promote the production of new animal friendly products that may not have been available otherwise.

We really feel that our work is paying off. We've been able to show our veg*n customers that we're all on the same wavelength, and we look forward to connecting people with more and more of the good stuff for our planet. While it's not as difficult to make a retail store vegan as it would be if we were a grocery store, we want to ensure that we continue to act with integrity and do what we feel is best for the environment (and those beings upon it). We'll continue to search out vegan eco friendly alternatives for all your clothing, body care and accessories.

Shift Natural Fashion continues to be the only store in Canada that carries Herbivore clothing, as well as a variety of other Hemp, Bamboo and organic fabrics. If you have any comments about our products, or any ideas about vegan / eco-friendly products that we should be carrying, send an email to jeremy@shiftfashion.ca.