For all their problems, you can’t accuse of the wool industry of being bad at image management. When we think of happy sheep munching away on rolling fields, and the idyllic, pastoral image of a farmer and their sheepdog. We seldom think of deforestation, over-grazing, and certainly not slaughter. Wool production is just a haircut for sheep, after all… Isn’t it?
1) Wool is not sustainable.
This is the big one. With meat, dairy, and leather, people generally think they are far more sustainable than they are, but they seldom react with the same shock and indignation at the mere concept that wool may not be the sustainable fabric they think it is. This is especially odd because the environmental problems of wool are well documented.
As ruminants, sheep produce a lot of methane. Methane is the primary contributor to the formation of ground-level ozone, a hazardous air pollutant and greenhouse gas, exposure to which causes 1 million premature deaths every year. Over 20 years, it is 80 times more potent at warming the planet than carbon dioxide. Unlike animals raised for meat, the average lifespan of a sheep farmed for wool is 10-12 years, over this entire time they are grazing and producing large quantities of methane. According to one analysis of wool production in Australia, the world’s top exporter, the wool required to make one knit sweater is responsible for 27 times more greenhouse gases than a comparable Australian cotton sweater, and requires 247 times more land.
The below chart shows one study’s estimate of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions in kilograms per 264 grams of fiber for seven different fabrics.
Emissions are not the only environmental impact of wool production, either. The environmental activist and journalist George Monbiot calls sheep ‘the white plague‘, and with good reason. Through overgrazing, sheep reduce the biological diversity of the sites they frequent. Where land has been deforested to accommodate them, they ensure that trees cannot re-populate these desolate areas by eating any green shoots that make their way above the compacted soil. The fact that farmers often trap, kill, or poison any predators who might harm their livestock does not help.
The industry is well aware of this impact, and while there are efforts to reduce the impact of sheep through selective breeding and better management, the industry has embraced the same greenwashing techniques as big oil. The greenwashing of wool is particularly pronounced, which is largely why we all have that pastoral fantasy image of what it means to farm sheep. As the 2021 report by the Center for the Biological Diversity and Collective Fashion Justice put it: “Wool is not a fiber simply provided by nature — it is a scaled product of modern industrial, chemical, ecological and genetic intervention that’s a significant contributor to the climate crisis, land degradation, water use, pollution, and biodiversity loss.”
2) Wool is not ‘just a haircut.’
The success of the wool industry’s advertising can be seen in no clearer way than the popularity of the idea that ‘sheep need to be sheared’, so farming sheep for wool is somehow doing them a favour. This is a self-evidently bad argument if you take even a couple of minutes to really think about it.
Why do sheep need to be sheared? Because we purposely breed them to overproduce wool. This is done for the same reason we breed pigs who are too large, turkeys who are too fat to even stand up, chickens who produce far more eggs than is healthy, and cows with udders so huge that they are prone to infection. These animals are selectively bred, man-made creatures who can barely even be called the same animal as their wild counterparts. Intentionally breeding sheep to produce too much wool to make a profit, then using the fact that they now need human intervention to be comfortable in order to continue to profit from this arrangement, is a self-serving and circular argument.
While obtaining wool does not technically require the deaths of the animals who are farmed for it, this does not mean that sheep do not die as a direct result of the wool industry, or that the production or purchasing of wool is without harm. Sheep raised specifically for their wool are often treated as little more than wool-producing machines.
Shortly after birth, lambs are castrated if they are male and have their tails cut off, often without anesthetic. Shearers are usually paid per sheep rather than per hour, which encourages fast processing speeds. It is perhaps unsurprising then, that injuries are common; they can range from small scratches to deep, painful wounds. Sheep are often sheared too close or when it is too cold – this is done to maximise profit, but it means that many sheep die from exposure or hypothermia. Once their wool production declines in quality, sheep are almost always sent to slaughter. This is also true of many of their lambs, who can be killed as young as two months old during lambing season.
3) Plastic is not the only alternative to wool
The pretense that you’re forced to either support the wool industry or buy plastic, is a self-serving false dichotomy. Wool advocates frame the debate in ways that are favourable to them, by excluding all other alternatives except for the worst one. This is incredibly cynical, but of course, it is easily challenged.
Firstly, it is important to acknowledge that not all plastic is ubiquitous in fast fashion not because of vegans, but because it is cheap and effective. Almost everyone criticising vegans for wearing polyester almost definitely owns plastic clothing themselves, plastic upholstery, cars using plastic, and food packaged in plastic. Even so, not all plastic is equally damaging. Recycled plastics are used by many manufacturers of vegan clothing, they provide a strong base and are often mixed with other, natural fibers. By making use of post-consumer plastics, we can make use of a material that is already in existence and would otherwise end up in landfill.
If you’d rather avoid plastic entirely, organic or recycled cotton, Tencel, hemp and bamboo are perhaps the most commonly used alternatives, and are suitable as a replacement for wool in just about every context. I have discussed these alternatives, their uses, and their environmental credentials in much more detail here.
4) Wool is not uniquely warm or waterproof
Wool is a very good insulator. This does not mean that wool has any unique properties for insulation though, and the same thing can be achieved through other, plant-based alternatives. Thick-weave cotton is very warm, including knits, flannel, and fleece. These are the same forms that you’d buy wool in for its warmth. Wool is still going to be a little warmer (and so is polyester), but for all but the most extreme cold, organic cotton will serve you well if you layer sensibly.
Hemp is another good option. It is extremely sustainable, it doesn’t require pesticides, it is cheap to produce with little land, and can be weaved into fleece just as wool can. It is also much more sustainable than even organic cotton. Hemp is an excellent insulator, and it helps that it is antibacterial and antimicrobial. Bamboo’s sustainability credentials are well known and it can be blended with organic cotton. This combination is exceptionally good as an insulator because the natural hollow structure of bamboo fibers traps warm air close to your body.
Wool is not completely waterproof, but it is water resistant thanks to the lanolin that sheep naturally secrete. It will hold up better than some of these alternatives, this is the major downside of hemp. Bamboo is great in this department as it is naturally water resistant and some forms of organic cotton are also waterproof, such as ventile.
While many people just want to avoid plastics entirely, which is fair enough, recycled plastics offer high-quality insulation and waterproofing, using post-consumer materials. Some of the higher-end vegan winter coats are made from a combination of materials like bamboo, hemp, and recycled plastic, to create thermal layering that is suitable for even very cold climates and heavy rain.
5) Wool is not uniquely long-lasting
Wool has excellent longevity, which is part of why it is often donated and traded. The argument then becomes: “Well I can buy a wool coat that lasts me my whole life or I can buy plastic ones that break down every year!” The idea that a standard wool coat, if regularly used will last your entire life is dubious, but wool is indeed much longer lasting than plastic is. Still, we’re assuming that plastic is the only viable alternative again.
Some of the alternatives already mentioned have longevity to rival wool, without the high environmental cost. Organic cotton is not the toughest of materials and generally won’t last as long as wool will, and neither will bamboo in most cases, but hemp is extremely robust and endures well over time. You’ll find plenty of people with hemp bags from the 1970s that are holding up just fine. If you take a look around online, you’ll find hemp is often mixed with organic cotton at a ratio of about 30-70, to give clothes a softer feel. You can pick up a hemp T-shirt online pretty cheaply if you want to test out the material without committing to a larger purchase.
As with all clothing, how long it will last is determined only in part by the fabric used. How you treat the clothes, how you wash them, and how often you wear them are at least as important as the material they’re made from. If you invest in high-quality clothing instead of relying on fast fashion, you will find that these items last far longer. There are many good quality vegan brands, using many of the materials listed here. If you’re looking for more general advice on the topic of vegan clothing, you can find it here.
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