We are huge badminton fans!
We also passionately believe that we can play badminton without harming animals, so we set-up Vegan Badminton.
We aim to inspire and enable the development of badminton into a vegan friendly game, but doing away with the use of natural feather shuttles.
A bit of history
Traditionally Badminton is played with natural feather shuttles which obviously entails harming birds to obtain the feathers. However, the growing trend towards sustainability means that Badminton is slowly adopting to using synthetic shuttles.
Badminton World Federation (BWF) has already approved the use of synthetic feather shuttlecocks at BWF International sanctioned tournaments of all levels in 2021.
This a huge step away from using natural feather shuttles and helping ensure long-term sustainability. BWF found that synthetic feather shuttle could reduce shuttlecock usage up to 25 percent, providing a significant environmental and economic edge for badminton going forward.
The added benefit of this is that using synthetic shuttles means by default the game of Badminton is going vegan!
What does vegan mean?
The Vegan Society defines “Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.”
What does vegan badminton mean?
Badminton as a game has already eliminated the use of animal guts used in making badminton racquet strings. Modern technology means new materials like nylon (a synthetic polymer) are now used for racquet strings.
Vegan Badminton takes the next step by opting to use synthetic shuttles rather than natural feather shuttles when playing badminton.
Vegan Badminton is an initiative of Play Badminton Club, a Badminton England affiliated club, which has been using synthetic shuttles since its inception in 2014. To learn more about Play Badminton Club, please do visit their website.
Join the Vegan Badminton movement
If you are a badminton lover and want to support a more sustainable cruelty-free means of enjoying Badminton simply sign-up to be supporter.