What we achieved together: ACTAsia’s impact in 2025

Across Asia, animals, people and the environment continue to be affected by systems that prioritise consumption over compassion, while education and behaviour change remain some of the most under-invested solutions. With nearly two decades of experience working across the region, ACTAsia responds to these challenges by delivering culturally relevant, locally led education that creates lasting change at scale in Asia.

The first ever CCN Summit!

This year we wanted to highlight our major programmes from 2025 and their incredible impact. 

2025 has seen ACTAsia continuing to reach an increased number of children, consumers and professionals with our vision for a more compassionate world for animals, people and the environment. ACTAsia’s established events and programmes have continued to grow and innovate in 2025 with social media helping us to reach even more supporters. 

Empowering the next generation to care for animals, people and the planet

Compassionate Classrooms – teaching children in schools

In 2025, ACTAsia reached 9,399 children through our groundbreaking Caring for Life (CFL) education for Children programme. We trained 1,516 teachers in humane education thereby providing the opportunity for the development of a whole school approach to mental health and wellbeing. Taught over six years, the curriculum enables teachers to foster prosocial behaviours, raise environmental awareness and promote animal protection. The lessons help to empower the next generation to invest actively in the wellbeing of our planet.

As part of our CFL Children’s Education programme we ran the following events in 2025 which all had a huge impact on helping children to develop a sense of compassion, responsibility and empathy towards people, animals and the environment. The results also overflow into the local community with a marked increase in prosocial behaviour.

Earth Day 2025 – Learning to care for our planet

Earth Day is at the heart of ACTAsia’s Caring for Life (CFL) education for children, allowing teachers and children to experience this award-winning education prior to implementing the six year of curriculum course.  This year, we promoted Biodiversity as part of the importance of ‘green education’. Indeed, 2025 marked ACTAsia’s FIFTH Earth Day event in April and every year the response from students and teachers is truly significant, as we educate the next generation about caring for their future, by looking after our planet. Earth Day is vital in demonstrating the importance of collective action for global solutions.

We are thrilled that 148 schools and educational institutions signed up for ACTAsia’s Earth Day programme, 59,000 participated in the teacher training workshops and 16,591 students received the “Biodiversity” themed class. 

ACTAsia provided primary and secondary school teachers with educational toolkits on the theme of biodiversity. The impactful lessons helped young people understand the symbiotic relationship between species, recognise the current situation of global biodiversity decline and inspired a sense of responsibility to protect the earth’s ecology. 

Growing Empathy – ACTAsia’s Summer Camp in rural China

ACTAsia’s hugely popular Summer Camp took place at the rural Haiyuan County No. 2 Primary School in August. Run over four days, the Summer Camp invited students to get involved with immersive project-based learning, teamwork projects and practical activities. Over 100 children took part with the goal of gaining a better understanding and relationship with nature, respecting all living things and how to cultivate empathy. 

Haiyuan County, Western China, is an area that has been affected by extreme poverty due to its harsh environment. Recent studies revealed that children from such regions are more likely to suffer as a result with a higher risk of depression and difficulties with academic performance. The goal of the Summer Camp was to inspire children to take part in fun and engaging activities in order to enhance their social responsibilities and promote positive attitudes, thereby encouraging well-rounded development.

ACTAsia believes that when each individual begins making small changes, it will influence their peers and families, which in turn will positively impact society and promote future growth in the region.

Shaping compassionate consumer choices

ACTAsia’s Caring For Life (FfL) Education for Consumers focuses on raising awareness surrounding the exploitation of animals, people and the environment in production methods for consumer related items. ACTAsia’s CFL Consumer education works across a number of platforms including our Fur Free project and the Consumer Choices Network (CCN).

Chengdu Fashion Week

In 2025 ACTAsia celebrated being part of three Official Fashion Weeks, adding Chengdu Fashion Week to its list of official Fashion Weeks alongside Shenzhen and Shanghai. ACTAsia has worked tirelessly in 2025 to educate fashion designers, brands and businesses to make more compassionate choices to promote fur free, sustainable fashion and sustainable plant-based living. 

In 2025 10 new fashion brands joined the Fur Free Retailer scheme and ACTAsia received an incredible 14m impressions of fur related media. 

The following events in 2025 promoted the incredible impact of ACTAsia’s Consumer Education program.

Findings from our 2024 Consumer Fur Survey

ACTAsia is passionate about reducing global fur consumption. To get a clearer picture of consumer habits, ACTAsia has commissioned independent surveys in China for the past eight years. The surveys are the world’s first and most extensive studies on fur consumption patterns and trends in China and have been conducted every two years since 2018. 

As part of the 4th bi-annual survey, ACTAsia collected data on Chinese consumers’ fur consumption attitudes and behaviours in the past year. The 2024 winter survey was completed in 2025 and the recently verified results demonstrate worrying signs that some consumers struggle to even identify fur products. However, there are also encouraging signs from the survey, including the fact that ‘economic environment’ has replaced practicality as one of the top reasons not to purchase fur in the most recent survey.

Plant Forward 2025 – growing plant-based diets across Asia

May saw ACTAsia’s fourth annual Plant Forward campaign in Asia with 44 events and activities taking place across seven countries. Plant Forward is an annual two-week festival organised by ACTAsia’s Compassionate Choices Network (CCN) that celebrates plant-based living and raises awareness surrounding sustainable consumption across Asia. This year 9 CCN members from SEVEN Asian countries — China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam joined Plant Forward events with a range of exciting and engaging events. The campaign ran from 16-31st May with website landing pages available 6 languages – English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Vietnamese. 

Since launching this unique initiative in 2022, ACTAsia has seen a fantastic response from our host nations. ACTAsia’s 2025 Plant Forward Campaign was a huge success with Total Engagement of 1.2m, Total Impressions of 158.4m and 192,585 livestream views.

This year, ACTAsia also looked to engage university students and successfully reached out to students from 46 universities in four countries which included universities in China, Korea, The Philippines and Indonesia.

We couldn’t have made such an incredible impact without the help of our Plant Forward 2025 partners. This year the number of partner organisations including corporate partners grew and ACTAsia developed important relationships with key partners such as Starbucks and SF Express in China. In total 109 partner organisations in 6 countries supported the event which included 83 corporate partners.

The Compassionate Choices Network Summit – building a regional movement

The Compassionate Choices Network (CCN) is ACTAsia’s pan-Asian network of like-minded organisations working together to accelerate compassionate, sustainable living across the region.

At the end of September, leaders from the CCN gathered in New Delhi with the goal of building a stronger, more compassionate movement for animals, people and the planet. This first in-person Summit brought together leaders from CCN organisations to share their experiences and to foster collaboration through trusted relationships across Asia. 

Having worked together for the past four years, the Summit was a huge milestone for ACTAsia and the CCN. The four-day programme combined strategy workshops and reflective wellness experiences in an environment that fostered collaboration, cultural understanding, and personal renewal. The Summit not only enhanced knowledge but also deepened members’ connection to one another and to the CCN’s mission in addition to laying a strong foundation for continued regional impact.

Sharing our experience within Asia

In October three members of ACTAsia spoke at the Animal & Vegan Advocacy Summit (AVA), in Delhi. Programme Director, Dawn Kotuwage and Joy Lee, our CCN Coordinator, both gave very well received presentations. With more than over 50 years of experience between them, they spoke passionately to an audience committed to social change. Pei’s presentation explored “How leadership can change Hearts and Minds”. The moderator of Pei’s session was Prashanth Vishwanath, Director of Veganuary India, who she first met in 2005. 

Educating the next generation of professionals

As part of ACTAsia’s Caring For Life (CfL) Education for Professionals we provide training to vets, teachers, and fashion students and the fashion industry. By doing this, these influential professionals can make informed decisions in their work, lead by example and educate and influence many more professionals. By using these networks of professionals, we can spread our message of compassion and kindness further afield and more effectively.

This year we have trained an incredible 432 vets as part of the Vets for Change project. And in October 2025, ACTAsia delivered its 29th Train the Trainer as part of the Vets for Change programme, this time in Chengdu, marking a significant milestone in our Vets for Change Veterinary Training initiative.

Veterinary Training Programme, Chengdu, China

From 17th to 20th October, five veterinary trainers, 16 hands-on participants, and nearly 400 veterinarians and students joined online and offline with the shared goal of advancing the development of China’s companion healthcare industry through cutting-edge international animal welfare knowledge and technical training. The event was the 29th Train The Trainer Workshop co-organised by ACTAsia and Veterinarians for Compassion (VFC) Australia, with recognition and support from the World Small Animal Veterinary Association (WSAVA). Over the four days the participants learnt how to make every animal’s experience in the clinic safer, more comfortable and more humane.

Compassion in Fashion

ACTAsia is the first NGO to create a higher education fashion course focusing on fur free that is accessible, inclusive and completely free of charge. In 2025, this course was moved to China’s Xiaoe-Tech (XET) platform on WeChat, which offers both Chinese and English versions. We are thrilled that 2025 saw a 99% increase in enrolments in China – our target audience – with 896 students and professionals signing up this year. 

In December, ACTAsia delivered a content-rich lecture titled ‘How Fashion Practices ESG to Boost Sustainable Consumption and Production’ to 40 first and second-year students majoring in Fashion Design and Communication at the School of Future Design. The interactive session constructed a complete framework of ‘ESG Cognition, Consumption Trends, Practical Steps and Risk Assessments’ for designers and brands by using real data, cases and practical solutions.

Success stories

Throughout 2025 ACTAsia featured a wide range of incredible professionals, volunteers, educators, veterinarians and pioneers in our series of Success Stories. These incredible individuals are helping to spread ACTAsia’s vision of a more compassionate word for animals, people and the environment. 

In the press

Connection with the media is such a vital role within ACTAsia’s work and this year Pei was interviewed by a number of different publications and was asked to speak at various events. These included: Charity Times, Belle About Town, The Paper, Leading Lights and UN Webinar.

More highlights from 2025

Pei also travelled extensively to spread ACTAsia’s message as she states: “I advocate for ACTAsia’s vision and mission by giving presentations, meeting business leaders, connecting with change makers and thanking supporters and donors”.

ACTAsia was also present at London Fashion Week and Chengdu Fashion Week promoting ACTAsia’s fur free message. 

Our goals for 2026

In the year ahead, ACTAsia will focus on deepening and scaling the areas where we know we can create the greatest long-term impact, from reaching more children with empathy-based education, to expanding Plant Forward across Asia, to strengthening professional training that drives systems change.

  • Celebrate 20 years of ACTAsia’s work, reflecting on what we’ve learned, the impact we’ve achieved and the future direction for compassion-led change in Asia.
  • To hold an International Conference inviting teachers and school leaders in Asia to learn about the CFL for children programme and celebrate the launch the CFL publications’ six-year lesson plans. We also plan to share the results of the 3-year longitudinal research study.
  • To grow our CFL Earth Day engagement to help more children understand the link between animals, people and the environment through ACTAsia’s lesson plans.
  • To extend CFL education in rural China, where children have less access to well-being and compassion-based learning. Teaching them to be kind to animals, respect people and protect the environment.
  • Leverage data-driven research and consumer insights to fuel advocacy and industry change, using the 11th International Fur Free Sustainable Fashion Festival as a catalyst to expand the Fur Free Retailer scheme and secure lasting animal-friendly commitments from fashion brands.
  • To continue building the Compassionate Choices Network with 10 Asian countries, by providing capacity building and enabling the opportunity to work together to accelerate impact for a sustainable plant-based lifestyle.
  • To deliver the Plant Forward 2026 campaign across Asia, encouraging thousands of people to choose a plant-based lifestyle through food, clothes, living and travel.
  • To improve standards of veterinary care in China, working with the local government to expand the humane veterinary project, Train the Trainer.
  • To reach more university students and young professionals in China to enrol on ACTAsia’s sustainable, fur free fashion course, helping them make more ethical and sustainable choices in their future careers.
  • To work tirelessly to create a compassionate world for animals, people and the environment.

To make this possible, we need your support. Your contribution can help provide Caring for Life education for more children, train more teachers, and inspire future generations of empathetic leaders. Together, we can create a world where animals, humans, and the environment all thrive in harmony.

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