The Environmental Impact Of Mink Fur Production

This study evaluates the environmental impact of fur. Environmental impact was evaluated on 18 different factors and compared to other types of textiles. It finds that 1 kg of fur requires 11 animals and 563 kg of feed. Fur has an impact of 2 to 28 times higher than other textiles.

Excerpt from Report Summary:

“CE Delft has performed a life cycle assessment (LCA) of fur production, thus to quantify the environmental impact of the various links in the production chain, “from chicken feed to piece of fur”, so to speak. The analysis consists of two parts:”

• “Determining the impact of fur production with respect to 18 different environmental themes, providing insight into which phases of the fur production chain have the greatest impact.”
• “Comparison of the impact of fur with those of other common textiles: cotton, acrylic, polyester and wool, permitting environmental comparison between mink fur and other textiles.”

“To produce 1 kg of fur requires 11.4 mink pelts, i.e. more than 11 animals. In the course of its lifetime, one mink eats almost 50 kg of feed (including the share of the mother animal), resulting in 563 kg of feed per kg of fur.”

“The feed consists mainly of offal, which is of low economic value and is therefore only assigned a small share of the environmental load of chicken or fish; as the meat fit for human consumption has the highest value, it is allocated the bulk of the environmental impact. Cultivation of the wheat also has an impact. Although the total environmental impact of 1 kg of mink feed is not particularly high, the 563 kilos required to produce 1 kg of fur knocks on considerably in the total environmental footprint of fur and for 14 of the 18 impacts studied feed is the predominant factor.”

“Compared with textiles, fur has a higher impact on 17 of the 18 environmental themes, including climate change, eutrophication and toxic emissions. In many cases fur scores markedly worse than textiles, with impacts a factor 2 to 28 higher, even when lower-bound values are taken for various links in the production chain. The exception is water depletion: on this impact cotton scores highest.”

“Other factors making a sizeable contribution to the overall environmental impact of mink fur are emissions of N2O (nitrous oxide) and NH3 (ammonia) from the mink manure. These emissions contribute mainly to acidification and particulate matter formation.”

“The climate change impact of 1 kg of mink fur is five times higher than that of the highest- scoring textile (wool). This is due both to the feed and to the N2O emissions from the mink manure.”