Silk production kills billions of silkworm pupae annually — welfare considerations are beginning to emerge.
Silk production kills silkworm pupae at the cocoon stage — the boiling water that allows thread extraction kills the developing moth inside. Whether this causes suffering depends on whether silkworms have morally relevant experiences — a genuinely uncertain question given their simple nervous systems. Peace silk waits for moths to emerge naturally before processing cocoons, eliminating the certainty of harm. The scale of silkworm use — tens of billions of individuals — means that even a small probability of sentience creates enormous aggregate welfare stakes under uncertainty.