PETA Launches Inaugural Plant Wool Month
03.11.2025
London – This November, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is launching Plant Wool Month – a 30-day celebration of the beauty, diversity, and sustainability of the wools borne from the extraordinary plants that give the Earth its lungs. From hemp and bamboo that sequester carbon to floral yarns that reduce horticultural waste and fibres that divert leftovers from the food industry, the message is that plant wool is wool – but better.
The annual initiative will recognise the hard-working crop farmers, innovative textile makers, and pioneering designers who grow, spin, and work with materials such as organic cotton, hemp, bamboo, soybean and other textiles derived from plants to create knitwear, suits, and more, thereby weaving a kinder future for the planet and its animals.
“Plant Wool Month celebrates animal-free and plastic-free yarns that promote sustainable fashion while lowering greenhouse gas emissions and protecting animals with whom we share our precious planet,” says Yvonne Taylor, PETA’s Vice President of Corporate Projects. “When it comes to durable yarns that reduce emissions, nothing compares to soft, natural, and eco-friendly plant wool.”
As ruminant animals, sheep produce large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas with many times the global warming potential of CO2. This, along with the industry’s energy use, the land clearing undertaken to house sheep, the animals’ waste, and the use of chemicals to clean their shorn hair, has led the Made-By Environmental Benchmark for Fibres to rank sheep’s wool as a “Class E” material – the worst possible category. In contrast, hemp – a plant wool used for thousands of years to make clothing – is ranked as a “Class A” material.
PETA entities’ exposés of over 150 sheep’s wool-industry operations across four continents highlight the ethical reasons for conscious consumers to avoid sheep’s wool. Lambs endure routine mutilation, such as having their tails and testicles removed, usually without pain relief, and sheep who have been purposely bred to produce more wool than nature ever intended are kicked, beaten, and stomped on in shearing sheds.
PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits. For more information about plant wool, please visit PETA.org.uk or follow PETA on Facebook, X, TikTok, or Instagram.
Contact:
Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]
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