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Includes rights and welfare of animals under human control; ethical approach to protecting all animals, including freedom from hunger and thirst, appropriate nutrition, freedom from pain, injury, and disease, freedom from fear and distress, freedom from discomfort, and freedom to express behaviours that promote wellbeing, and anti-poaching.
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Animal welfare has implications for human health, the environment, and socio-economic development. Anchored in research, our Animal Rights and Welfare: A Getting Started Guide aims to support your company as it begins or revisits an animal welfare strategy. It helps build a foundational understanding of the issue and provides clarity on the work ahead.
Developed in the 1960s by the Farm Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (FAWAC), the Five Freedoms Model is the most widely accepted global standard for animal care. The model outlines the five freedoms that safeguard the welfare of animals under human care, including freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury, or disease; freedom to express normal behaviour; and freedom from fear and distress.
The Five Domains Model builds upon the Five Freedoms Model, outlining more comprehensive internal and external circumstances that impact animal welfare to allow for systematic and structured assessments of animal welfare. It identifies key domains that influence an animal's ability to survive and thrive under human care and which should be positively impacted to safeguard animal welfare.
The Terrestrial Animal Health Code provides international standards for improving animal health and welfare. Created by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), the code is the most universally referenced standard, appearing in the internationally recognised documents such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct. The first volume in the code features general provisions, including information on animal disease diagnosis, surveillance, and notification; risk analysis; quality of veterinary services; disease prevention and control; animal welfare; and more. The second volume provides recommendations applicable to WOAH listed diseases and other diseases of importance to international trade.
This resource from the Global Coalition for Animal Welfare (GCAW) can help you to implement strong animal welfare practices throughout your organisation. GCAW exists to bring together companies from across the food supply chain (including producers, manufacturers, retailers, and food service companies) to help identify and address barriers to improving animal welfare standards - at scale, and for the long term. Centering current animal welfare science and the expertise and experience of GCAW members, this resource explains how GCAW is prioritising animal welfare issues and developing roadmaps for industry change while supporting producers in implementing strong animal welfare practices. It defines key terms and actions related to animal health and welfare, and presents a set of six aims for animal care that have the potential to provide good animal welfare outcomes.
This paper from the Global Coalition for Animal Welfare (GCAW) provides insights on how member companies have implemented their animal welfare commitments and outlines a seven-step best practice framework that can help you to improve animal welfare in your supply chain.
The Animal Protection Index can help you to explore global legislation related to animal rights and welfare. Developed by World Animal Protection, the index ranks fifty countries according to existing animal welfare policies and legislation and provides comprehensive profiles on each country. These profiles assess how each country addresses animal welfare issues according to ten indicators, grouped into four goals. These goals include recognition of animal sentience and prohibition of animal suffering; presence of animal welfare legislation; establishment of supportive government bodies; and support for international animal welfare standards.
The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare analyses farm animal welfare policies, management systems, reporting, and performance of 150 of the largest food companies. The benchmark assess companies across fifty distinct, objective criteria, and is the most authoritative and comprehensive global account of corporate practice on farm animal welfare.
The Animal Welfare Standards Benchmark by the Textile Exchange outlines minimum requirements for cattle production that existing standards and certification schemes must guarantee. It covers a basic level of care to accommodate different systems of cattle farming around the world.
This report from FOUR PAWS International examines the fashion industry to understand progress and performance on improving animal welfare. It analyses 100 brands using Good On You’s methodology for ‘animals’ and can help you to understand what best practice on anima lwelfare looks like in the fashion industry.