The leather supply chain is again extremely complicated as it does with livestock, treatment of animals, how leather is sourced and processed and so on and so forth. It is a minuscule percentage across the global leather value chain that has awareness, leave alone access to the modern sustainable, earth-friendly methods of processing? How does the SLF propose to do that? Does it have country wise chapters? Or is it only for the region it operates in?
The leather value chain is complex and is subject to a number of risks across environmental, social and governance issues. SLF truly believes that to be a sustainable industry of the future we cannot just work with the top 20% of facilities who have the awareness of the issues and the resources to deal with them, but instead we have to work globally with stakeholders at all levels. Whether that’s working on deforestation in Brazil, water scarcity in Africa or India, animal welfare in parts of Asia or modern slavery in Europe, it is our collective responsibility to educate and support improvement at all levels. We must also stop generalising – there are good and bad examples of tanneries and leather manufacturers in all parts of the world; there are good and bad farms; there are good and bad product factories. No industry is perfect and all production involves consumption of resource in some way. What we have to do is understand the challenges in the different regions and work within the regions to effect change and improvement.
From my personal perspective I advocate that one small change made by many is far more impactful than one big change made by a single organisation. We have to work from the top down and from the bottom up to drive real transformative change for the future. We cannot ignore the issues and pretend they don’t exist – we must recognise them, acknowledge them and then work together to find solutions. That’s why the partnership proposition that we encourage at SLF, to connect the dots of the value chain together, is so important. We want to encourage partnerships to accelerate the improvement process.
What is the synergy with the Chrome-Free Leather Alliance? How has it been progressing?
The Chrome Free Leather Alliance is a pro-active organisation that seeks to encourage the transition to more sustainable tanning methods (not just away from chrome tanning as the name sometimes suggests). It is important that we recognise that as with most topics, it is dangerous to assume that the industry can just flick a switch and everyone move away from chrome tanning. As with all these topics, my favourite word is “balance”. There are various tannage types available and they all have different considerations, for example: availability, cost, margin for error in process control, ease of effluent treatment, end application, access to technology and support. It is the Foundation’s aim to work with industry to encourage improvement but not to restrict trade or raise even higher barriers to access and opportunity.
As someone in the business of leather for a long time, what are some of the major innovations that could change the way how leather is perceived? Which are the feasible ideas? And which ones would need considerable resource intervention?
Some might think me a relative newbie compared to others who have served their entire careers in the leather industry! However, during my leather industry career the best innovation I see is that which takes an existing process and makes it more efficient or sustainable. For example, innovation that reduces the amount of time the tanning process in the drum takes, re-use of resources such as water, utilising renewable energy, eliminating the need for certain chemicals, reducing the amount of chemicals or water needed to begin with. This is true innovation.
On the other hand, we have what I term “false innovation”. This is innovation which just exchanges one problem or impact for another one. An example of this is the latest “big news” funding for bio-leather that is created in lab conditions using the cells of a real cow – while the cow still lives in the field. I personally don’t see the sense of this – if the cow could then live forever, then great, but the cow will die eventually. Only now when the cow dies, we won’t use the natural by-product of the hide to create leather with, because it was already grown artificially in a lab. Instead, the natural hide will be thrown into landfill where it will create environmentally damaging emissions during decomposition. Meanwhile, the lab grown version uses energy, resource, etc to be created and will then still require processing of a similar kind to natural hide processing.
Another example of “false innovation” could be pineapple material. Growing enough pineapples to utilise their leaves to make enough leather to replace bovine, is just not practical – for a start you can’t grow pineapples everywhere around the world. We would deplete the nutrients in the soil where they can be grown, possibly diverting the soil use from other agriculture and meanwhile, the natural hides again just end up in landfill as waste. Does that make sense? Not to mention the fact that most of the alternative options require the addition of polymers or plastics to make them robust enough to do the job that leather already does. Studies have been conducted in the last few years to prove that leather remains unique in its durability and longevity attributes, outperforming all alternatives to date. I would like to see more quantitative research investment of this kind.
There are major innovations taking place in tannage types, machinery intelligence, process and quality control tools, traceability tools and resource minimisation technologies. The biggest challenge to implementation and utilisation of these great innovations is cost. Only the top leather manufacturers have the resources to invest in new machinery and technology and this is the industry’s biggest obstacle to a more sustainable future. Brands should consider investing back into the leather value chains in partnership, rather than investing in external “alternative” offerings, as has been the trend recently.
I would implore the investment funders of the future and the global brands, to support real innovation that takes an already valuable industry and makes it more sustainable instead of constantly undermining that industry – one which supports the livelihoods of millions of people globally through farming, leather manufacture and product manufacture.
