COTANCE

The problem of deforestation is extended to leather only by ‘proxy’. The entire industry—the world across—has just about a year in not only to put in place traceability systems that work and are cheap, but also to shed off the deforestation tag. texfash tries to unravel the threads.

European trade body COTANCE has formed the Leather Traceability Cluster to align leather traceability schemes in a bid to reduce audit fatigue in tanneries and avoid unproductive costs for the leather value chain.

A recent council meeting of COTANCE has decided to negotiate with leather sector certification bodies to work out a standardisation of the core requirements for traceability. A proliferation of certification systems and requirements have been resulting in audit fatigue for leather companies.

Against backdrop of recent EU policy developments, a new social dialogue project — Towards Zero Adverse Impact of the European Leather Industry – Green Deal Leather — has been initiated. texfash.com reports.