INTRODUCTION TO THE GUIDE

Background and motivation


The Beauty Without Cruelty Investment Guide has been created at the request of prospective investors who come from a religious, vegetarian background, for a source of information about the nature of businesses carried out by various companies. Many such people are very concerned about what ingredients the company's product contains or what the process is of making that product. The source of their concern is their deep attachment for the principle of ahimsa preached by their religion. Unfortunately, the nature of many businesses violate this principle by involving infliction of gross cruelty on animals to obtain from their bodies materials of commercial value. Many sections of the Indian community do not indulge in or support such occupations. They even refuse to share in the profits of such companies since to them it represents ill-gotten wealth. It is for such people that this guide is written. Specifically, those interested in knowing whether there are animal ingredients in an article and whether the process of manufacturing the article involves inflicting pain upon any animal should find this guide useful.

Purpose of this guide


The BWC Investment Guide is meant to help the investor identify companies whose businesses do not necessitate conscious and willful infliction of physical harm, injury, slavery, or death upon any member of the animal kingdom down to the level of insects. Microbial life and plant life is not included. Human life is included. Weapon and explosive manufacturing companies would be strongly proscribed for the destruction of human life that their products are intended for.
The problems in classifying companies come under two headings:

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  1. Companies whose businesses involve inflicting cruelty upon animals although their names or reputation do not suggest so.

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  2. Companies whose businesses involve no cruelty to animals although their names suggest otherwise.

BWC urges the reader not to form opinions about companies without informing himself/herself completely about them first. In the first case, a person may end up supporting a cruel activity, and in the second, he may be proscribing a good business by having preconceived notions about it. Examples of the second category of companies include manufacturers of synthetic leather goods, furs, or substitutes to meat. BWC would like to whole-heartedly encourage such businesses. We urge the reader to invest in these companies and make them successful so that ethical substitutes to necessary products become available commercially. They may be as profitable to invest in as their proscribed competitors, so investors need not be worried about the return on their investments. Such companies are few and far between, however. The names of most companies usually correctly reveal the nature of their businesses. There is no ambiguity about what their product contains or what the process might be of making it. Thus, the fact that a company called 'Unpopular Hatcheries' or 'Paltry Poultry Farms' is involved in breeding and killing chicken (or other fowl) is evident from its name. Similarly it is clear that 'Genuine Leather Goods, Ltd.' deals in the product of killed animals. It is interesting to note here that people in India still believe in the myth that leather comes from the hide of animals that have died a natural death. Such is not the case, and BWC rejects as ethically unacceptable all products of animal origin, regardless of the circumstances of the animal's death. This is based on the realistic assumption that no company that is surviving in the competitive, mass-manufacture market of today would rely on the natural deaths of animals for their raw material; a visit to the nearest slaughterhouse is far cheaper and more fruitful.


Other than such companies which produce or market a direct product of animals' suffering, the common man is faced with problems when considering other companies. The problems lie in the following classes

• 1. Companies which, besides their main product or line of products, are involved in another product for which they are not well known. This is usually the result of diversification. A large company manufacturing say electrical equipment as its main product might also be manufacturing slaughterhouse machinery. Or a steel manufacturer may be involved in exporting marine products.

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• 2. Products not commonly associated with an animal. Examples : jelly - mostly made from gelatine (bone material). Animal hair paint brushes - most are made from hog hair bristles for which the pigs are tortured, being literally held down underfoot and their hair yanked out.

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• 3. Products containing 'hidden' animal ingredients. Examples: soaps and toothpastes. Most soaps contain animal fats which come directly from the slaughterhouse. The leading toothpastes contain bone material. Paints - most black paints are made from bone black.

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• 4. Processes that use animal ingredients or equipment containing animal products. Examples : The process of wine or beer clarification involves the use of material such as isinglas obtained from fish. The process of producing the thin, fine, silver foil, called varkh, found on mithai, etc., needs the intestinal wall of freshly killed oxen (on which the silver is kept and hammered to its fine thinness). The process of tyre manufacture involves the use of mutton tallow.

Contents of this guide


The BWC Investment Guide contains the names of most companies listed on the Stock Exchanges in India. The list is arranged alphabetically, omitting leading articles like 'The' from their names. The companies are classified under three categories: green, orange, and red, to help the user decide whether to invest in the company or not. The colours carry their commonly understood meaning in this context also: a company is marked green if it does not cause cruelty to any animals, and BWC gives the green signal, so to speak, to anyone wishing to invest in it; ones marked red should not be invested in as they are known to cause cruelty to animals; and any company marked orange is to be considered with caution and personal judgement. Reasons for the assignment of companies to the orange and red categories are given alongside their names. The reasons for rejection usually follow one of the 'problems' stated above.


The classification is based upon, and therefore limited by, the best knowledge available to us. Although many experts have been contacted to obtain the required information, our research into the ingredients of products and the details of manufacturing the product continues on an ongoing basis. Where the details of a company are not completely available, we have rated it red if there is strong reason to suspect that its product is not free of cruelty. This may happen either because of the fact that the product is known generically to satisfy our criteria for disqualification, or because of information gathered about the company from non-official, though reliable, sources. When a company that we have marked red or orange satisfies us that they do not cause harm to any animals, BWC would be happy to move them to the green category.


The following list gives the names and descriptions of some substances that have caused companies to be disqualified from being rated green. The reasons for their proscription are given alongside.

Limitations


Practical reality, and the difficulty of being a 100% consistent in application of principles have prevented BWC from issuing a categorical red rating in a few cases where a blind application of our criteria would have recommended that rating. Such cases are put in the orange category, and are left for the reader to draw his own conclusions. Companies have been rated green if no known alternative to that product or process exists and that product is indispensable to our lives in today's context. An example is steel. The literature describes the process of manufacturing steel as involving the use of animal fat at some stage. This would disqualify steel-manufacturing companies from inclusion in the green category. However, they have been retained there because of the indispensability and ubiquity of steel in today's era. Companies have been rated green if they are secondary links in a chain of products. This generally includes all companies that provide a product or service to the customer using products in which or in whose manufacturing process animal cruelty has featured. A vast majority of companies fall in this category. Thus a construction company that uses cement of sea-shell origin or a vehicle manufacturing company has not been penalised. However the company manufacturing the tyres or shell-cement has been rated red. Similarly, refrigerator manufacturers have not been penalised although the manufacturer of the refrigerating fluid, freon, has been put in the red category.


Generalisations have been applied which that may turn out to be wrong in individual instances. For example, all pharmaceutical industries have been labelled red, because of the common fact that drugs are required by law to be tested on animals before they can be marketed. Moreover animal ingredients are utilised by them for almost all their products. Individual companies have not been approached to check whether they test on animals or not—it is assumed they do. Similarly, all five-star hotels have been labelled red because there is no known five-star hotel that does not have a restaurant serving non-vegetarian food.


Subjective seriousness of offence: an example is the dairy industry. The dairy industry survives on depriving the offspring of cattle of their milk. In the case of the male offspring of buffaloes, this translates to death by starvation of the calf. The decision on the seriousness of this crime is left upto the user, and the dairy industry categorised in the orange class.


Financial services and mutual funds have been marked orange as they could invest in trades unacceptable to BWC. Any company servicing another company involved directly in (i.e., whose main purpose is) killing animals is marked red. Therefore companies that make poultry feed, fishing nets, slaughterhouse equipment, etc., are all marked unequivocally red, along with the company that is using their products ( i.e., the poultry company, the fishing line, the meat manufacturer, etc.). However, the companies supplying water and electricity, for example, to the meat manufacturer have not been penalised, owing to the difficulty of determining the complicity of these companies in the businesses objected to.

Conclusion


BWC believes that ones investments can easily reflect strict ethical standards; example : one need not invest in a company manufacturing lubricants or tyres, even though one may use a vehicle which is a necessity. On the other hand, one does not need to invest in a company manufacturing bone china or even buy the product as it can be termed a luxury.
It is hoped that this guide provides the reader information about the nature of businesses of various companies relating to their exploitation of animals. In preparing this list, BWC has tried to be as objective as possible in the application of its criteria, but in an exercise like this it is impossible to be a 100% consistent and arrive at a practical, viable conclusion. Therefore, the final choice is left to the reader, since it is his conscience that must agree with his decision.


Any errors in spelling the names of companies are regretted.

References

• 1. Kothari's Industrial Directory of India.
  2. ENAR Foundation Research Center.
  3. Andis Robeznieks Hidden Animal Products, The Vegetarian Times.
  4. The American Vegan Society.
  5. F E 1100
  6. Capital Market Publishers