// PrettyLittleThing pledges $300,000 (£157,000) to support relief efforts in the Australian bushfire crisis
// $100,000 pledged for Wires Wildlife Rescue, $100,000 for Red Cross Australia & $100,000 for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service
// These are in addition to donations already made to the St Vincent de Paul charity
PrettyLittleThing has joined a growing list of Australian retailers and shopping centres in making a AUD $300,000 (£157,000) donation to support relief efforts in the bushfire crisis.
The British online retailer said it would donate $100,000 for the Wires Wildlife Rescue charity, $100,000 for Red Cross Australia and $100,000 for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.
The fashion retailer said these donations are in addition to the one already made for the St Vincent de Paul charity.
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“As the bushfires continue to devastate parts of Australia, our hearts go out to all those who have been affected,” said John Lyttle, chief executive of PrettyLittleThing’s parent company Boohoo Group.
He added: “We are committed to doing more and we continue to explore additional ways in which we can support the relief effort in the coming weeks and months.”
While PrettyLittleThing may be the first retailer from the UK to make a donation to bushfire relief efforts, they’re not the first retailer per se.
A long list of Australian retailers, such as fashion chain General Pants Co, sportswear chain Rebel Sport, lingerie retailer Honey Birdette, department store Myer, “Big 2” grocery chains Woolworths and Coles, and Scentre – the owner of Westfield in Australia and New Zealand – have made donations that number in the millions when combined.
Over 1300 homes have been destroyed and a further 501 homes damaged this fire season, which started as early as August but have intensified as summer in the southern hemisphere started in December.
Experts also estimate that more than 500 million animals have died in the fires, many of which are native to Australia such as kangaroos, possums, platypus, wombats and koalas.
It’s also widely reported that the amount of land the bushires have ravaged equates to a land mass bigger than Belgium, making it worse than last year’s Amazon wildfires and the biggest and most devastating seen on the planet.
While conditions eased in parts of Australia earlier this week, the bushfire season is far from over and major cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra have endured some of the worst air quality in the world as strong winds bring in the bushfire smoke.
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