With vegan food, fashion and makeup firmly established in the mainstream, more and more people are looking for ways to have an ethical, cruelty-free home, too. You may not have given much thought to what animal-based products crop up in your house, but there are many: fabrics, from silk to wool to sheepskin, are an obvious example – but is your mattress vegan? What goes into your cleaning products, or your energy provider? And is there such a thing as vegan loo roll?

The fact is, you can take a vegan approach to choosing almost anything for your home – and it needn’t be complicated or expensive. Next time you have to replace an item or redecorate a room, shop around for vegan options – you’ll be surprised at what’s available.

Many people choose to go cruelty-free at home for compassionate reasons, but there’s a compelling ecological argument, too. The environmental footprint of vegan products is dramatically smaller than that of those derived from animals; they also tend to use far fewer chemicals in their production. (The leather used to make a sofa has to be heavily treated with resins and preservatives, for example. With a plant-based alternative, you’ll avoid exposure to these types of substances.)

Some big retailers stock vegan homewares, including John Lewis, Habitat and Ikea. Soft furnishings are an easy place to start. Manmade versions of animal-derived fabrics are often more affordable than the real thing, and perform well, too. There are vegan fabrics made from recycled bottles (try weavergreen.com), leathers made from pineapple fibre (try parkinfabrics.co.uk), and acrylics or other synthetics, linen, PVC, satin and cotton (opt for organic cotton, though, as its production is far less damaging to the environment).

A caution, though: when looking for vegan alternatives some options are more eco-friendly than others. Synthetic fabrics may be free of animal elements – but they shed countless microfibres into the water system, a factor that should be taken into consideration. [See footnote]

Paints are tricky, too: they often include animal derivatives and most have been tested on animals, so you’ll have to pay a little more for plant-based, vegan alternatives. The good news is that these are often VOC-free, giving off none of the unpleasant chemicals that can trigger health problems. Lakeland paints are vegan, and Auro offers a vegan range, too.

If you’re choosing wooden furniture, think about how the timber is sourced. Trees provide habitats for thousands of different species and the climate-altering effects of deforestation are well known, but we don’t always consider this when investing in a new chair or table. Look for FSC-certified items or those made from reclaimed wood. Or consider bamboo: it grows speedily and uses little water in its production. To make sure your new purchase hasn’t been varnished or glued with animal-derived products, you’ll need to look for certified vegan items: check out peta.org.uk, treehugger.com, or online vegan department store wearthlondon.com for ideas.

Another sound eco option is to choose vintage pieces, that may otherwise be destined for landfill. An advantage of this is that you won’t have to worry so much about “off-gassing” (new items are often treated with a heady cocktail of chemicals that leach out after production, and that you may prefer to avoid inhaling or sitting on). Stainless steel furniture is an alternative to wood: it’s durable, recyclable and vegan in terms of materials; steel doesn’t need to be coated with preservatives. It’s eco-friendly, too: scrap metal is the industry’s primary source of raw material, and most items will be composed of 60% to 80% recycled steel.

Cleaning products are a bit of a minefield, with product-testing an issue and animal derivatives in many items; but there are plenty of options out there. If the thought of scrolling through lists of ingredients sounds as interesting as watching your plant-based paint dry, don’t despair: look for products that carry the Vegan Society or Leaping Bunny logos, or visit veganwomble.co.uk for lists of homecare products.

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While you’re rethinking everyday purchases, avoiding plastics is an obvious step that will have an impact on the wellbeing of countless species: how about investing in some good old-fashioned handkerchiefs instead of plastic-wrapped tissues? In fact, reconsidering your choice of personal care products (from condoms and razors to sanitary items) can make a huge difference, and there are vegan versions of all of these.

What about other supplies we need? A major cost for most of us is our energy bill: is it possible to make a vegan choice when it comes to our provider? Surprisingly, yes. Green energy is a step in the right direction, but just because a supplier uses renewable energy, it doesn’t make it vegan. One energy source used by many companies is anaerobic digestion (AD), an eco-friendly process in which micro-organisms are used to break down waste, including animal, and produce biogas. It’s a green process that reduces our toll on landfill and the amount of methane released into the atmosphere, but it’s not a vegan one (octopus.energy has a more detailed explanation). But this year, Ecotricity launched as the UK’s first certified vegan energy provider, guaranteeing that there’s no trace of animal by-products used in its production.

Vegan living is simple. It’s about making informed decisions every time we buy something, and about sending a message to producers at the same time: that we don’t need animals to suffer so we can fill our pillows or clean our dishes. By making ethical and compassionate choices, we can still enjoy a beautiful home, while doing all we can to safeguard the place where we all live – our planet.

A vegan guide, room by room



Living room

Visit peta.org.uk for vegan sofas; or try Anthropologie’s Angelina sofa, which is made from “dolly wool”, a hard-wearing vegan fabric (£1,998, anthropologie.com). Choose acrylic carpets rather than woollen ones, and for vegan rugs, try jute, cotton, faux fur, faux sheepskin, or recycled materials: the Andalucia Paloma rug is made from recycled plastic bottles (from £130, weavergreen.com) or H&M’s patterned cotton rug (£15, hm.com) has just won best wool-free rug at Peta’s third vegan homeware awards (peta.org.uk).

Try synthetic throws (Zara Home’s multicoloured plain weave blanket is 100% acrylic, £49.99, zarahome.com); burn soy rather than beeswax candles (try Le Labo’s vegan soy wax candle, £52, libertylondon.com); and use microfibre rather than down-filled cushions (dunelm.com stocks an affordable range, or try Yonder Living’s “cactus silk” cushion, woven from a natural vegetable fibre found in the agave cacti; £52, yonderliving.com). Visit vinterior.co, pamono.co.uk or newcomer ceraudo.com for stylish vintage furniture, or try charity shops, such as British Heart Foundation’s ebay store. [See footnote]

Bedroom

From wadding to glue, mattresses can contain all sorts of animal-derived ingredients, but vegan mattresses are officially A Thing (try cottonsafenaturalmattress.co.uk). For bedding, try Habitat’s down-free Ultrawashable duvet, with its cotton cover and polyester filling (from £50 for a single duvet, habitat.co.uk). If you can’t give up silk sheets, try The White Company’s Camborne cotton bedlinen, which won Peta’s best silk-free sheet award at its 2018 vegan homeware awards (from £30 for a pillowcase, thewhitecompany.com). Check out compassionatecloset.com for a guide to vegan fabrics. [See footnote]

Kitchen

If you’re revamping your flooring, go for sustainable cork (colourflooring.co.uk is launching a carbon negative cork floor in early July), lino tiles, or reclaimed wood (vegandesign.org and veganhaven.co.uk are great cruelty-free resources). Use recycled glass, stainless steel or bamboo storage jars, rather than plastic – these don’t need to be high-end purchases: think Argos, Amazon and Robert Dyas.

Use vegan-friendly cleaning brands such as Dr Bronner’s, Astonish, Bio-D, and Method. Some supermarket own-brands are vegan, too – check their websites, or mix up your own cleaning solution with white wine vinegar. Swap beeswax wraps or clingfilm for vegan food wraps (from thewisehouse.co.uk). For tableware, try the Uma recycled glass tumbler and carafe from thegiftedfew.com.

Bathroom

Cork and lino flooring aren’t so good here as they’re not water resistant – though Colour Flooring’s new cork (see above) is water-resistant. Natural textured stone is an alternative, or opt for reclaimed or recycled tiles (wallsandfloors.co.uk stocks a range). For walls, tiles made from recycled glass are attractive and easy to track down: try toppstiles.co.uk or the Crush recycled range at naturaltile.co.uk.

With toilet paper, most big brands can’t guarantee that the chemicals added during manufacture aren’t animal-derived. Who Gives A Crap’s recycled loo roll claims to be vegan; it uses eco-friendly packaging and donates to charity, too (whogivesacrap.org). Use bamboo toothbrushes (try andkeep.com) and vegan soap instead of plastic-bottled liquid soap (try friendlysoap.co.uk).

• This article was amended on 3 July 2019 to insert a paragraph cautioning that use of synthetic fabrics on vegan grounds needs weighing against the environmental impact of synthetics’ microfibres in the water system.

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