Latest / The Curve / RTC32: How to avoid investing in companies that test on animals

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RTC32: How to avoid investing in companies that test on animals · The Curve

• 0:00
  Thank you so much to Pathfinder Kiwis Overplant for making this mini-series happen.
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  This is great. We're back for the second episode of Elmene series.
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  We're here. Welcome to the studio Tara. Thank you. Happy to be here.
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  Thank you so much for flying from Christchurch to this such an effort.
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  Our first overseas. Technically it's overseas.
• 1:32
  South to North Ireland. It's a solid effort, so thank you so much.
• 1:36
  Oh no, travel. Short flight. Got a lolly.
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  Head a nap as well. Yeah, head a nap.
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  Hey, do you know what would be really great? If you could just give a tiny overview as to
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  what you do, just to give a context as to why we've got you in studio today.
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  Yeah, sure. So I am the director of a charity called Ender Avis, the New Zealand Antifa V-Section
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  Society, bit of a mouthful, but we campaigned into animal testing. And I guess that's the big
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  link here is the ways in which we are knowingly fund animal testing and the ways that we can
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  empower consumers to learn to to shift that money or to cut it off at the source as we like to
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  say. And yeah, there's like a whole range of ways that that funding links to that issue.
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  I'm going to sound super ignorant here because I haven't done a lot of research into
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  specifically animal testing. What is actually still being tested in New Zealand? Like what does
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  that look like if you were to lift the veil of what's obviously being hidden from consumers?
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  So it's actually it's really broad. Basically we're using around 300,000 animals a year
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  for science in New Zealand. And New Zealand. So that covers... This isn't as shocking.
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  I'm flabbergasted. The wording in it is quite like it's that involved.
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  It's like slightly done. No research. I haven't seen it so much.
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  I haven't, but it's more on like global companies and go live, but that's crazy.
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  I know it's not funny, by the way. There's nothing funny about it.
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  It's shocking to a lot of people. 300,000.
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  Yeah, but that includes animals used for research, testing and teaching purposes. So that's kind of
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  like the science bubble of animal use. What kind of animals is that? I mean rats is obviously
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  one that gets used quite a lot. Oh, we use old types of animals. So rats, mice, rabbits, cats, dogs,
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  cows, chickens, pigs. Actually, the number one used animal in science in New Zealand,
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  a cows. So we do a lot of research around animal agriculture and trying to sort of make that
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  industry less environmentally damaging or increase profits of that industry. So your cows are
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  cows are used a lot. And what are they testing on the cows? Is it? What you imagine when you hear
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  the words animal testing, we're doing things like feeding animals poison, we're depriving them
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  of oxygen, we're, how does that even happen? It must be a really hard industry to work and
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  and know the real ins and outs of what's going on. It is. But I'm one of those lucky people where
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  like my anger turns into energy and turns into passion and just keeps me going and fighting
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  even harder. But some of the things we read about do feel like a story book because it feels so
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  unreal. Yeah. Yeah. But we've got this like New Zealand, like 100% pure, pure insects, you know,
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  ending you hear you do lift up the veil and you get so many. Oh yeah. It's so well hidden, so many
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  Kiwis don't even know that this is going on in our backyard. But yeah, the one that shocks people
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  is cats and dogs being used and we still actually breed cats and dogs for the purpose of science
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  in New Zealand. So yeah, when I think of being fed poisons, we actually uncovered a case
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  that dogs were being, they're actually being fed the dead carcasses of possums, they had been
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  fed 1080 to see if that poison effect would cross over to the dogs when they ate them. Gosh. So
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  yeah, there's um, I'm your girl if you want to like have some depressing chat in here about
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  like some awful things to have and I am, I'm the girl you want to invite over. It feels very
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  hunger games. Yeah. Yeah. There's also like the basic like biological research. A lot of it's
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  done for curiosity sake and like, I mean, we discovered a case at Christmas where like bumblebees
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  are being electrocuted. It's like, what are you even finding out there? Yeah. It kind of all
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  for like research and, you know, research and development in terms of how something affects
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  an animal or well, you're looking at biology and you're looking at how that animal's body
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  operates. But once they're already deceased, you know, not, not killing them for that. I think
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  there's, there's a much more humane way to go about it. Yeah. Then killing them for that purpose,
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  it's like a hundred percent agree. What we, we say is like science and ethics can go hand in hand.
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  We can be ethical while we learn. Yeah. That's the kind of thing we, it's like investing in ethics can
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  go hand in hand. Yeah. Exactly. You don't have to be mutually exclusive. You can have both of them.
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  Yeah. But a lot of people have the misconception that you can only have one or the other. Yeah.
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  In fact, when you combine them, it's even better. Yeah. And I guess thinking about Kiwi Sava
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  because our Kiwi Sava funds are invested overseas, right? So what are the difference between
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  regulations in New Zealand in terms of animal testing to overseas? I guess the differences
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  between us and the likes of the US is the use of primates. So in Australia, that's still huge.
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  What's that, all right? Monkeys, non-human primates. Is it just apes, though? It's primates,
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  like monkeys, apes, parallels. Yeah. We use them in the likes of, like they can be used in
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  like conservation type research, like a zoo, they can be observed and things like that. But over in
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  the likes of Australia, there means some awful stuff. The main reason why people get quite
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  round off about it is because of their likeness to us. Like, you know, we can sort of see ourselves
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  more in those animals, compared to a rat or a mouse, but... Yeah, that looks like quite like a monkey.
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  That is a compliment. So adorable. I'm proud to have that.
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  That's your favourite animal, isn't it? I must say, when I was researching for this, I thought,
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  I'm so impressed with all of the work you do. And I love all of God's creatures,
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  but like rats, rats I struggle with. I never want anything bad to happen to them,
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  but I would certainly not want them running around the ground now. Oh, sorry. I wouldn't be in heaven
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  I know running around the ground. That's so cute. They actually look like, they remind me of
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  little mini puppies. Oh, okay. I'll work on the others and disagree on it. I'm going to work on it.
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  I'm going to try to get a minute, but I must say at one point, I thought about moving to New York.
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  I thought, oh my God, New York would be cool. And then someone said, in passing, oh,
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  there's rats, a size of cats in the eye. I saw one of them and I was like, oh, no.
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  Oh, I think I need a good in New York. Yeah, so it's like a bit of amazing to hang out on the subway.
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  But like you were saying, so with Kiwi Saver and so much money going offshore, I think that's where
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  a lot of concerns or opaceness happens because we just assume that the level of standard that we
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  have here to not be called animals applies overseas and it doesn't. Kiwi Savers can be invested
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  in companies that are testing cosmetics on animals, which is something I feel quite
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  most people quite universally are against testing cosmetics on animals yet. There's so much money
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  in that. What does that even mean that you're putting a foundation on a ranch? Like how does that
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  even simulate a human face? Or like a regional. You'd be putting like a regional, I really
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  had a regional on a on what though? Like what animals would even? It'd be like dropping a
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  substance in a rabbit's eye and seeing the effects or they shave the skin, the fur off rabbits and
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  put a substance on their skin and see how it hurts them and things like that. And then there's
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  the toxicity side where they actually force feed these substances to the animals and see how it
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  harms them. And there's also this awful test called the Audi 50 TS where they feed them
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  enough substance until at least half of them die. So there's, it's definitely not like sitting
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  there and putting like blush. As far as imagination, we're putting the scar on rats. Oh it doesn't
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  look good on them, so we won't select. No, it's far more gross than that. Oh gosh. The animals that
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  they're using don't replicate us accurately either, so that's the way it's just like a real waste
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  and because it's not even efficient in terms of what they're trying to find out. Exactly.
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  And this might sound naive, but what is the alternative? Is it testing on humans?
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  No, there's actually so many cool replacements that are all based on human biology. So human
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  cells, human tissues, we're getting, we're getting incredibly advanced and exposed. And I'm in a
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  petri dish and like, what is that? Pretty much. Sorry, but like an anomaly scientist. I mean, if you're
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  that medically advanced to test on animals, I feel like you can create an arm. Yeah, it's right.
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  Like, are we growing? Like, what is happening here? I don't know about a whole arm and petri dish,
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  but it's like skin, like a little hunk of skin. Yeah, we do have things like that where you can
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  actually grow like human skin. There's this, there's this really cool up and coming technology,
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  they're called micro fluidic devices and it's like organ on a chip. So you can have like, you know,
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  a lung on a chip and you can use actual cells from a human lung and put it in there and then
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  they're connecting them all together and trying to get by body on a chip so that the different
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  organs can interact and, you know, even mimic the movements of those organs naturally. And that
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  kind of stuff is super exciting. So there's really no excuse to be testing on animals really. No,
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  yeah, I would say none none whatsoever. So just like flag the make up, like we can just all look
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  a little bit uglier for a bit. You know, if there's other living beings being harmed so that
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  you can look a bit hotter. But then there's so many amazing cosmetic companies that make amazing
• 11:19
  products that have nothing to do with animal testing. And including like global giants like lush,
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  they're international and they don't grow anywhere near animal testing. They make the most beautiful
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  products like it's possible. You've just got to actually follow through on your ethics. Yeah,
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  I feel like there's definitely a light that's been shown on this area more recently,
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  you know, with the rise of like ESG, like the environmental social and governance and visiting. And
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  people just wanting to know, you know, I don't want to just make a 10% return on my investment.
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  If it means at the detriment of, you know, pigs and cows and dogs and cats, you know, it's I want
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  to know that I'm not doing any harm while I'm growing my wealth. And like I just did some research.
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  I did actually do some research. Thank you so much for having prepared.
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  I was googling publicly listed companies that do animal testing. And it was pages and pages and
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  pages. And I nearly fell off my seat. Really? And I was like, gosh, this is like, really? It's 2022.
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  Yeah, what? Yeah. And also big, big names as well, like Laurie L, like Johnson and Johnson,
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  Unilever, which own tons of brands. Yes, they might have brands in there that do not that don't
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  test on animals, but the parent company. Yeah, the parent company does and you're overshadowed by
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  the other company, the other products that do it. So if you're investing in that company,
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  because one of their product lines doesn't test on animals, you're actually supporting the other
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  product lines that do. So as from an investor, it's actually really difficult to, you know, to
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  decipher and also, you know, invest in that way. There's another thing that makes it hard to
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  is that those companies are very good at seeming cruelty free. Like Laurie L will put out comms
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  saying against animal testing. We don't like animal testing. And then people are like, oh,
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  Laurie L's great. But then they they test on animals. It's just like a, oh, you've got to read
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  between the lines. It's like, we don't condone animal testing in America or something. And it's
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  like very, very terrible animal testing. And then to take the small press like, but we do in New
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  Zealand. Exactly. Every other country in the world. There's one thing I've learned is like
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  read between the lines because everyone can lie with statistics. And yeah, yeah, it's like,
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  it's like the radio stats. Yeah, totally. We are number one in five to ten year olds.
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  We are number one in doctor cats. You know, like it's like it's so misleading. Yeah,
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  definitely read the small press. So then I guess in terms of investing and that crossover between
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  animal cruelty and ethical investing, where do we even start with that? Well, especially with
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  Kiwis over providers or Kiwis over funds because you don't even know where your, you know who your
• 14:04
  Kiwis have providers, but a lot of people don't even know where their money is invested or what
• 14:07
  companies. So there's that added step of like, merciness, I guess. But there is a great platform
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  called Mind for Money, which I don't know if you've heard of. But yeah, so they have these badges
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  and to get a badge to the second animal cruelty badge, a non animal cruelty badge. Yeah,
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  I was like, you want to be proud about it. Yeah. So the non animal cruelty badge, there's a non
• 14:30
  fossil fuels badge and non-controversial weapons badge. So if you've got those badges,
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  you're your funds don't invest in any companies. Oh, that makes things quite easy to just look
• 14:38
  for the edges. But it's a new thing. So it's, it's, there's a few funds, there's only a few
• 14:42
  funds that have it, but it will become things like that. It will become more and more mainstream
• 14:46
  and then people will be like, okay, cool, rather than having to go through every holding of your
• 14:50
  Kiwis over provider and holding is company. Sorry. Sorry. Thank you.
• 14:56
  And there's my little glossary. No, going through every company that Kiwis over,
• 15:01
  provide our own. And then if it's a uni lever, then going through every one of their products,
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  and it would just be so time consuming. So it's great. There's platforms out there that do do that.
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  And then you know the funds that don't invest in companies that test on animals.
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  It doesn't actually exempt all animal testing. It's the non-pharmaceutical testing.
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  And at the moment, there's only two funds anyway that have the badge and it's pathfinder
• 15:28
  and booster. Yeah. But it's just pathfinder that's fully animal testing free, right?
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  Boosted on invest in like the likes of cosmetics testing on animals. But then pathfinders like
• 15:41
  the full Shabang, they don't invest in any sort of animal testing. So it's so hard for investors to
• 15:47
  know, like even I struggle and I'm in the industry and I'm looking at these companies every day and
• 15:51
  looking, you know, looking at funds. And I'm just, I'm mind boggled, let alone investors.
• 15:58
  Pathfinder Kiwis and a plan is the amazing sponsor of this mini series. They are proud to help
• 16:02
  you stay for your future without costing the earth. You can grow your individual wealth while
• 16:07
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• 16:12
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• 16:16
  information in their product disclosure statement or check out the link in our show notes.
• 16:21
  Maybe there will be a time where people are just like refusing to have their Kiwis ever money
• 16:26
  anywhere that's supporting something that doesn't align with the earth. Yeah, we saw that recently
• 16:30
  with that company DGL and that CEO that came out. I don't know if you guys saw about and he was
• 16:35
  calling out, you know, he just made some really sexist and racist comments and investors started
• 16:40
  pulling the money out. They were like, we don't want to be aligned with, we don't want our money
• 16:44
  invested in a company that's led by someone who makes these comments that we don't align with.
• 16:48
  And so the share prices tanks and investors just pulled the money out. And it's so awesome to see
• 16:54
  because it's like, you can't get away with this kind of stuff. You can't get away with
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  testing on animals and it speaks consumers and investors to just be like, man, that's fine.
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  It's when there's other companies out there that are doing an awesome job, but not testing on
• 17:08
  animals. I want to give my money to them. Yeah. I think the first step though was people even
• 17:13
  learning that the money is invested in things like that because not that long ago we were unaware
• 17:18
  of it. We didn't know that Kiwis savers can be invested in that way. And as soon as we found out
• 17:23
  and shared it with all of our supporters, there was like a massive sort of reaction where people
• 17:27
  were like, wait, what? Yeah. These are very dedicated people who have been supporting the charity
• 17:32
  since the 70s and 80s. So donating to support anti animal cruelty? Yeah, not just donating,
• 17:38
  but they will have attended marches back in the 80s with hundreds of other people. They would have
• 17:42
  written submissions. So like, fiercely involved in this. And these are also people who donate
• 17:46
  like pieces of land and houses and stuff to the charity, basically being like, we believe in what
• 17:52
  you do so much that like, here's all of this wealth, hopefully, to make more change. And then
• 17:57
  did they find out that their Kiwis savers were? Well, those sorts of gifts that are left in
• 18:02
  people's wills, unfortunate, that means they've passed away. So they wouldn't have learned about
• 18:07
  that before the campaign. But there are people who are very passionate about it and do leave like,
• 18:14
  you know, a chunk of their life's worth to continue the fight against animal testing, which I
• 18:20
  think is so beautiful. Yeah, that's so amazing. Yeah. Well, it's kind of why we're doing this
• 18:25
  podcast series. It's to shine a light on the fact of like, where is your money invested?
• 18:29
  Because a lot of people don't know. And they just assume that Kiwis savers providers have the same
• 18:34
  views and ethics, values and ethics that they do. And would invest the way that they would want
• 18:40
  their money to invest their investors. But it's not the case. Well, it's such like a complicated
• 18:47
  issue animal testing in particular that I can see the struggle that the likes of those companies have
• 18:51
  and even pulling the issue apart and figuring out where the ethics sort of stand. I know with
• 18:57
  pathfinder, we've sort of worked together a lot to help them build those sort of criteria, I guess,
• 19:04
  on what they would and wouldn't accept. And there's a lot of like sharing of expertise,
• 19:09
  because we know the issue inside and out. But then when it comes to investing, we're like,
• 19:14
  what? Well, just that means we just how does it spell? Can we just backtrack a little? I just
• 19:20
  can so relate, by the way, I'm still very much learning about investing. But I'd like to just say
• 19:26
  I think that's incredibly cool from pathfinder to be so open to learn and grow and change and
• 19:32
  be doing things better. And that's what we need is not only the company side doing that, but also
• 19:38
  the consumer and the investor side, right? And so I've got to say, real problem, my computer's just
• 19:44
  popped up saying, you're a winner, you've been chosen to participate, to participate in lottery.
• 19:48
  So I've just got some viral stories. I've got some really bad viruses, like computer, like it's
• 19:53
  quite epic. But no, it's so good, like you say, so that pathfinder is continually trying to learn
• 19:59
  and like reaching out to people like yourselves who are so educated in the space, rather than just
• 20:04
  assuming that they know what companies are not animal testing and investing that way, they're like,
• 20:10
  okay, we actually want to learn more and improve ourselves and because everyone can do better
• 20:16
  by learning more. And so with pharmaceutical testing, is it essentially using animals to
• 20:22
  predict any potential outcomes that might then happen in humans? Yes. Yeah, and there's some
• 20:28
  outdated laws that actually require those tests to happen, just another part of the problem.
• 20:35
  Wow, so forget like FDA approval, which is like the big approval company in the States.
• 20:40
  You have to go to pretty rigorous like clinical trials and stuff, which I assume would be
• 20:46
  animals up to a point in their humans. It does typically go that way, but I mean a little bit off
• 20:50
  topic, but what we saw with COVID is it sort of shifted that because of the urgency to get,
• 20:56
  you know, useful vaccines out. It actually shifted the way it was all done and we had human trials
• 21:02
  happening at the same time as animal trials, rather than before. That would have been quite
• 21:06
  interesting to see like the Dalek comparison, right? With that, anyway, a lot of what I've seen
• 21:11
  is that the ones that made it to human trials were tested in other ways other than animals beforehand,
• 21:18
  and then went out that way. A lot of people in like my line of work are looking at that as a case
• 21:23
  study of what we could be doing and shifting in a different way and saying like we did at once
• 21:27
  when the urgency was there, why are we still using animals at all? Oh god, I love animals so much.
• 21:34
  It just makes my heart hurt to think about. That's so useful.
• 21:38
  That's got a really cute dog called me, so I imagine if it was like, let's get me so 500
• 21:43
  pound dollars, like it's just perfect. And do you know what I think the worst part is, is that
• 21:47
  the overall mindset I remember of sitting in traffic in Sydney and I was, there was this, sorry,
• 21:53
  this is slightly off topic, but there was this bus and it had a little duckling and then a little
• 21:57
  puppy and I was like, one's your friend and one's your food. And I remember just sitting there
• 22:02
  being like, oh my god, it's so true. You know, we've kind of like said, you know, cows are food,
• 22:08
  but dogs are pets. And you know, pigs are food, but cats are pets. And it's like, you'd be
• 22:14
  outright as if you went to someone's house and they were like, oh, we're having a horse for
• 22:16
  dinner. You'd be like, uh, disgusting. And this is my pet pig. Yeah, like it's so weird. And so I
• 22:22
  think when it comes to your mindset around companies that you support and businesses that you give
• 22:28
  your money to, whether it be on a consumer level or on a, on a bigger investing level, we just need
• 22:33
  to be educated and open minded, I think, around what does that look like if you actually think about
• 22:39
  the way that that company works in terms of testing things on animals. And are you comfortable
• 22:44
  that if you are like, that's your choice, but yeah, but it's just we just need to know that it's
• 22:48
  happening so we can make that choice. There's some cool ETFs actually. So there's some cool
• 22:53
  exchange traded funds. So these are like funds that are listed on the stock exchange, which invest
• 22:59
  in companies that don't test on animals. Well, that's amazing. So if you were kind of, didn't
• 23:05
  want to do your research or, you know, felt quite overwhelmed, you can invest in these ETFs, which
• 23:10
  have done a lot of the heavy lifting for you. But again, it probably comes down to definitions,
• 23:15
  but at least they're taking a step in the right direction. That's amazing. Yeah. And also,
• 23:20
  just for you know, who doesn't know ETFs are like, it's like a Christmas hamper where you have like,
• 23:25
  oh, I got a cat and a jar of jam and lava, but you know, you kind of have like a little bit of
• 23:29
  everything. So they've got like heaps of different companies in the basket. So if you buy a share
• 23:35
  in an ETF, you get access to all of the things in the hamper. But you only buy one share and it's
• 23:40
  like spread across all of the companies rather than buying a share in a hundred different companies,
• 23:45
  you just buy the one share. Yeah. So what Vuxing is like, if you were to buy an ETF that actively says,
• 23:50
  we don't have more animal testing, then there might be like a whole bunch of cool companies that they
• 23:55
  invest in. What are the ETFs called if you know what I'm monster? There's one called VEGN. Vegan.
• 24:02
  VEGN. Yeah. That's cool. That's a ticker. And that's like, we were talking before about do companies
• 24:08
  make up their own tickers and some of them do and then ETFs can make up their own tickers too.
• 24:12
  But there's one, there's like a female empowerment ETF and it's ticker as a she, S H E.
• 24:18
  I was like, lol. That's so cool. But yeah, there's lots of ETFs now on, like there used to be just
• 24:23
  country or sector ETFs. So if you wanted to get exposure to just Australian companies or just health
• 24:28
  care companies, whereas now there's way more innovative ETFs, like there's the VEGN ETF,
• 24:34
  there's climate ETFs, there's female empowerment ETFs. There's so many different ETFs. It's quite cool.
• 24:40
  It's like cyber security ETFs. You can go down like a rabbit hole of ETFs and yeah, it's quite cool.
• 24:46
  And so yeah, did some research found there's quite a few non animal testing. Maybe in the show notes,
• 24:52
  we could put the not the reference that you knew on the one or to check out the ETFs because
• 24:56
  there would be quite cool even just to go through those the ETFs, like the companies that are within
• 25:01
  that. Yeah, so it's quite interesting. Yeah, when you lift up the hood and look underneath,
• 25:07
  it's your Microsoft, it's Visa, it's, you know, I guess it's more the tech companies,
• 25:14
  because they don't want to start coming. They don't test on animals. They're not seeing if
• 25:17
  a cat wants to join teams. No, no, they're not testing teams on that cat wall. Yeah, okay.
• 25:23
  So that's probably how they got a skirt around that a bit. But still, I guess if your money is
• 25:28
  going towards companies that are not affecting animals or testing on them, then at least
• 25:34
  that's the way you want to invest, then that's those are the companies that don't test on animals.
• 25:39
  Yeah, so yeah, that's really, I didn't know about those. That's a cool thing for us to look into.
• 25:45
  We can be so distracted with whatever our, you know, the iron, the price, the focus, whatever
• 25:50
  we're trying to do, but actually to make real positive global lasting change, you need lots of
• 25:56
  money behind things. This is the reality. So we have to be careful and know that our money is
• 26:02
  supporting the companies that are making the changes we want to see. And making sure you're not
• 26:07
  contradicting yourself by, you know, consuming only cosmetics that are not tested on animals,
• 26:13
  but then investing in the likes of a lawyer or, you know, your Kiwis ever will become
• 26:20
  with someone who is investing in animal testing or something. And if you're fine with that,
• 26:23
  that's fine, but if you're so passionate about something, then you at least owe it to yourself to
• 26:29
  check where your Kiwis ever money is going to make sure that you're not contradicting yourself.
• 26:34
  Really? Yeah, don't get yourself up about it. The best thing we can do is educate
• 26:38
  and then make changes. So true. Money fuels innovation as well. So the more money that goes into
• 26:45
  this space, you know, from a consumer level or from an investment level, it's so great because it
• 26:50
  just brings about change so much quicker. Yeah, I think that's so true. And we see it so clearly
• 26:55
  with the cruelty-free cosmetics side. Yeah. Like the rise in cruelty-free cosmetics has been quite
• 27:00
  wild. And it is because of consumers. We're finding out that animal testing happens for
• 27:05
  cosmetics and we're saying we don't want that. We want cruelty-free. And I think it's disrupted
• 27:09
  the whole industry. So much to learn. I don't know. I need to get a look at investment the same.
• 27:16
  I'm just going to make sure that I do so much research before I make an investment now.
• 27:21
  It's coming from the queen of research. We're going to already do a lot of research for
• 27:25
  making an investment, but you're going to have no loss. Hey, it's Friday night. Sorry, just
• 27:30
  research again. I'm all cruelty-free. I'm companies. I think it is really important though, because
• 27:35
  the numbers, looking at numbers, it kind of doesn't seem you don't feel the realness of it. But in
• 27:42
  my line of work, when I'm actually reading what these animals have to go through, what they're made to
• 27:46
  endure, it's so real. They're real lives, they're real animals who rely on people to learn more
• 27:52
  and to take action and to use their kind of power and whatever way they have it to change.
• 27:57
  What was back in the day with caged hands and caged eggs, and then there was that hole.
• 28:02
  Oh my god, I just reached on that. I was alive. I was like, did you? I was like, choose your
• 28:09
  topic, and I was like, battery hands. They are so cruel. It's a real thing for me. I'll go
• 28:16
  out to a cafe, and I'm like, where are your eggs from? And people are so embarrassed. It's like
• 28:22
  Josh, I'm like, no, like the thought of it being, it just grosses me out. It's such a
• 28:27
  whole look. But I think that's part of it is just like when that becomes front of mind, and
• 28:32
  you know, you actually wake up to the fact that I don't want to eat eggs from a battery hand.
• 28:36
  And then now there's so many free range eggs available. It's because there was this whole
• 28:42
  kind of movement away from wanting that. And so it's kind of like, okay, cool. Now we've dealt with
• 28:47
  the chickens, now they still with the pigs. Okay, no doubt with the pigs. We're making
• 28:53
  progress, but we need to do it. There's a small species that we need to be healthy. Let's get on
• 28:57
  to it quickly. We need to get to the right hair. There'll be a tipping point, I think, where we
• 29:02
  as a society sort of draw the line on what the social licenses and the way that we treat animals.
• 29:08
  And then it will just be like, the floodgates will open, and we'll see a lot of positive changes.
• 29:13
  At Christmas time, we did this, like, 12 days of Christmas expoze. We, for 12 days straight,
• 29:18
  we exposed an experiment that they had conducted on animals. And it just, like,
• 29:22
  well, God, that would have been like, oh, everyone wants the present today.
• 29:26
  Like thousands and thousands of people saw that. We had media, we had social media.
• 29:30
  This is recently, yeah, but can you give us, like, three presents?
• 29:35
  Like, what was that?
• 29:36
  The presents you don't want. No, but like, I think it's good for our audience to
• 29:39
  yeah, because as you were saying before, if you, if you're unaware of how bad it is,
• 29:43
  then you might not have the passion or, like, care to really change the way that your money is
• 29:48
  being invested. But it did blow up and a lot of people, I think it, it opened their eyes to
• 29:54
  what's going on at Otago. But if you want three presents, one was actually the bumblebee,
• 29:59
  so electrocuting bumblebees. I've already had that present, so I'd like three more please.
• 30:03
  Okay, let me rewind and think. There was, they were using the four swim test.
• 30:08
  So where they put rats in like a beaker of water and
• 30:13
  force them to swim like these rats can't touch the bottom, they can't crawl outside,
• 30:17
  they have to just continuously swim. And that's used as a way to apparently measure depression.
• 30:22
  So the longer they're at swim for the idea is they are less depressed.
• 30:28
  It's hugely scientifically invalid as well as unethical. Like, who are these scientists?
• 30:35
  Like, are you all good? Did you got a university?
• 30:39
  Maybe have a conversation with someone with depression, it's probably gonna give you more
• 30:43
  and it's hard to put more rats in it. Yeah, yep, so there's that one. There was a lot of
• 30:48
  maternal deprivation studies that we exposed, so the likes of separating baby rats from their
• 30:54
  mums and then recording the calls, so the calls of the pups. And some pretty gruesome
• 31:00
  like bisection ones where they cut the heads off, baby rats. That's not the tip of the iceberg.
• 31:06
  I don't really want to see the rest of the iceberg. Yeah, I feel so hot and like,
• 31:10
  sweaty and stressed. Well, if you want more presents, they're all on our website and there's like
• 31:15
  videos and photos to go with them if you interested your faces. So this is another pop-up
• 31:22
  on my computer. Oh my god, no one needs to see what that was. It's like a porn site?
• 31:26
  Yeah, let's just skip on to the next topic.
• 31:33
  No, but yeah, thank you so much for your time, Tara. I think it's eye-opening and devastating
• 31:39
  and also just like so important for us to be aware of the stuff that's happening, not only in New
• 31:45
  Zealand when it comes to animal testing, but overseas, especially given our kiwi savours,
• 31:49
  so much money that's going overseas and fueling some of these companies.
• 31:53
  So yeah, and if you are concerned about a brand or a company about where, you know,
• 31:58
  before you make an investment and you're worried about their testing on animals or or anything,
• 32:03
  just Google, like Google's so good for this kind of thing. Yeah, it ends at Avias. We have a
• 32:07
  cruelty free guide that lists like all the different cosmetic companies who aren't affiliated
• 32:13
  with animal testing at all. And we have like a very strict criteria there. So we're super confident
• 32:18
  that none of them are involved in animal testing. And that's the sort of thing that we share with
• 32:22
  Pathfinder saying like, this is a good way to vet cosmetic companies if you want because
• 32:27
  they're definitely not involved in animal testing. Look to their experts, look at like the resources
• 32:32
  in today, they have Pathfinder, they work so closely with us on this issue that they...
• 32:37
  Is there anyone that doesn't know that's a kiwi savour scheme?
• 32:41
  You know, because we're keeping like Pathfinder, Pathfinder, because we're really aware of the fact that
• 32:46
  they're super ethical, but for anyone that doesn't know. But it's so good to know,
• 32:50
  yeah, to use the experts, because it can be so overwhelming. And you do this day in day out.
• 32:55
  Yeah, I've got limited names and different events in the room. I'm not bringing a lot to the table.
• 33:01
  I also think like, if no news is... If they don't publicly say that they don't
• 33:07
  test on animals, they probably do. They probably do. Yeah, yeah. I can't see you on the bottle.
• 33:12
  Yeah, yeah. I need to check out my cosmetics, because I haven't got a quad. I know that's
• 33:18
  really embarrassing to admit, but... I think a lot of people would be... Can you tell me if I know
• 33:22
  what my mascara brand is, I've got Glossier, have never heard of it. Okay. Okay, I've just sort of
• 33:29
  waiting for you to be like, yep, that's a bad one. I was like, I mean... What I know on the cruelty-free
• 33:33
  guide is Mac, they test on animals. Oh, okay. Oh, you're going to have to get rid of your
• 33:38
  in-time makeup bag. I know. God, I want to go wash my face now. I know.
• 33:44
  Really good. I'm sorry to share the news. Get it off now. Stop the point.
• 33:55
  Thank you so much for your time, and if anyone has any questions or wants to find out more,
• 34:00
  where can they do that? They can come to our website at NZWS, so NZWS.org.nz. I
• 34:06
  when it comes to vegan cruelty-free makeup, then a guide to vegan is also a good one,
• 34:12
  my own little personal plug. We'll just plug that side of it. Yeah.
• 34:16
  We'll get vegan cruelty-free makeup. One of my favourite things in the world, so... Okay, great.
• 34:20
  So anyone can jump on that. I'm going straight there. We'll also put some stuff in the show notes
• 34:26
  around like specific investments in 80 years that do not support animal testing.
• 34:32
  Amazing. We can use that too, but you're thank you so much for having me.
• 34:35
  No, it's been really fun. Thanks for coming.
• 34:37
  Thank you. And I also love what you two do as well. I think it's a it's a very cool thing to see
• 34:43
  other women empowering other women. Oh, thank you. That's so awesome. Thank you.
• 34:49
  Thank you so much for joining us for today's episode of Raising the Curve.
• 34:53
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• 34:57
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• 35:04
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• 35:13
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