What I found out from Loro piana is good
While I'm not a fan of luxury conglomerates and am the LEAST interested in making Bernard Arnault even richer than he already is, LVMH's Loro Piana is the only brand I could think of that is transparent enough to meet your criteria of "animal-friendly production".
1. LP is vertically-integrated: they control and manage every step of the knitwear production from beginning to end, starting with the fibres which are traceable (i.e. which herd they are from). Since they want to be offering the best cashmere available on the market, they have the animals' interests at heart: it is only logical that well-fed, well cared for goats produce the best cashmere.
Source: "Do you know where your sweater came from?" (New York Times),
LVMH Press Release
2. LP has pioneered the "Loro Piana Method": a selective breeding approach. Context: One of the problems with modern cashmere production is quantity over quality: herders raise too many goats producing poor quality fibres (possibly resulting from bad animal treatment, malnourishment due to insufficient food sources). Too many goats also means desertfication = environment destruction (this is only a TL;DR explanation; tons of research and reading on the subject). Selective breeding is the way to go: using this method, herders choose the goats producing the thinnest (softest), longest (most durable) fibres, opting for a quality over quantity approach. This is also why
LP is able to offer the softest cashmere jumpers on the market that pill the least.
Source:
LVMH Press Release
Of course, take can all just be greenwashing marketing targeted to environmentally-conscious consumers.
@880 also has experience with LP and can maybe chime in. I'm speaking from experience that once you try Loro Piana cashmere, you can never go back.
Pic of some of my LP baby cashmere in various styles (crewneck, v-neck, mock neck, rollneck, half-zips)
