Editor’s Note
This article examines the complexities of ethical certifications for down, highlighting that even certified products often involve birds raised for meat or foie gras. It serves as a reminder to scrutinize sourcing claims carefully.
If you’re concerned about animal welfare, you should closely examine the down products you purchase. The pillow, comforter, or puffy jacket you’re considering may use down from live-plucked birds. Even ethical certifications often only mandate minimally acceptable treatment—such as ensuring birds have feathers on their backs and regulating their light/dark cycles—before they are slaughtered for meat (or for foie gras production), after which their down and feathers are processed into bedding or apparel. Some companies use down and feathers hand-collected from the nests of molting ducks and geese that are not raised for food, but this practice exceeds standard certification requirements and is not scalable for most down products.
The most common ethical down certifications are the Responsible Down Standard (RDS) and the Global Traceable Down Standard (GTDS). Both certify farms that produce down and feathers from birds free from unnecessary harm, prohibiting live plucking and force-feeding, and requiring adherence to the Five Freedoms of animal welfare: freedom from hunger and thirst; from discomfort; from pain, injury, or disease; to express normal behavior; and from fear and distress.
The RDS certifies both home goods (like pillows and comforters) and clothing. It was established through a partnership involving The North Face, Textile Exchange, and Control Union, with support from Allied Feather & Down. The GTDS primarily certifies clothing; it was initiated by Patagonia and is enforced by NSF International. Although GTDS-certified down is mainly found in items like down jackets, Joshua Brugeman, business unit manager for consulting at NSF International’s Sustainability program, noted that suppliers can provide GTDS-certified down for various products, including bedding.
GTDS certification is slightly stricter than RDS. Donna Worley of the RDS stated:
This means GTDS traces further back in the supply chain by certifying farms where waterfowl are kept for egg production, regardless of whether down is harvested there. With RDS, parent-farm certification is optional unless down is also collected at that stage.
A key change in the RDS is the prohibition of “parallel production”—raising both certified and non-certified waterfowl on the same farm. The RDS 3.0 documentation clearly disallows this practice. Both RDS and GTDS allow manufacturers to handle certified and non-certified down, provided they are clearly labeled and kept separate.
RDS- or GTDS-certified items should have a seal on the label. You can trace any certified item to its source using Allied Feather & Down’s Track My Down service by entering the lot number from the hang tag or garment, or by scanning a QR code. If a retailer is not certified but claims its manufacturer is, you cannot use this tracking service. However, you can verify manufacturer or farm certification using the supplier-search tools on the Textile Exchange and NSF websites.
Ethically certified down products, such as those featured in various guides (including comforters, pillows, sleeping bags, and jackets), often come at a higher cost—similar to organic food, ethically sourced down is more expensive to produce.
When purchasing down bedding, you may also encounter certification labels from the American Down and Feather Council, a subsection of the Home Fashion Products Association.
