The Five Freedoms Ignored:
Columbia Threadneedle Investments
Cruelty exposed
This photo is representative of the standard industrial farming practices permitted in the company’s supply chain.Photo: Andrew Skowron / We Animals
Columbia Threadneedle Investment is one of the major investors in Marks & Spencer.
And as an investor in Marks & Spencer, Columbia Threadneedle Investment is profiting from some of the worst animal cruelty in the global food industry.
From being packed into overcrowded, filthy waters where fish’s bodies can become riddled with deformities and open sores from sea lice and other irritants to being cut open while alive and fully conscious — these are the everyday realities behind Marks & Spencer’s supply chain. Realities that Columbia Threadneedle Investment is helping fund.
We reached out directly to Columbia Threadneedle Investment, providing clear information of the cruelty they are enabling through their investment in Marks & Spencer. No response. No action. Just silence.
While responsible investors are pushing companies to modernize and eliminate outdated, abusive systems, Columbia Threadneedle Investment is doing nothing. By continuing to back Marks & Spencer, they are sending a clear message: animal suffering is an acceptable price for returns.
They had a choice.
They still do.
But the longer they stay silent, the clearer it becomes — Columbia Threadneedle Investment isn’t just standing by. They’re standing in the way of progress and humanity.
Fish and crustaceans in Marks & Spencer’s supply chain can face a brutal existence.
At factory farm seafood facilities allowed in the company’s supply chain, animals can be packed into overcrowded, filthy waters where fish’s bodies can become riddled with deformities and open sores from sea lice and other irritants.
Disease is allowed to run rampant, with a large percentage of animals suffering to death from disease before even making it to slaughter.
Wild-caught fish in Marks & Spencer’s supply chain face similar cruelty. Marks & Spencer has no public policy prohibiting cruel and environmentally devastating capture methods from being used.
Methods such as trawling and longlining can kill large numbers of bycatch animals, damage local ecosystems, and lead to painful and prolonged suffering as animals linger for days jammed in nets or dangling on hooks.
The slaughter process is no less horrific. Marks & Spencer allows its seafood suppliers to kill animals in the most brutal ways possible, including cutting them open while alive and fully conscious, cooking them while alive and fully conscious, slowly asphyxiating them, or beating them to death.
Marks & Spencer has the power and responsibility to stop permitting these extreme cruelties in its supply chain. The public expects better, and animals deserve to live free from this egregious and unnecessary suffering.
It’s time for Marks & Spencer to do what many other leading food companies have already done and put policies in place that ensure the Five Freedoms for animals in its supply chain.
