How to Source Leather Consciously and Sustainably
Photo by Martin Adams on Unsplash
Leather is the oldest fabric used by humans - and still wildly popular. Even today, this multi-billion dollar industry serves a growing demand, despite rising criticism of its severe environmental impact. Leather production contributes to global warming and pollutes water with chemicals and toxins, especially in developing countries, where many leather suppliers are located.
As awareness for the negative environmental impact of leather rises, so does consumer demand for environmental proof of how it’s made and what the possible alternatives are.
Therefore, leather sourcing may be next in the consciousness revolution, according to Sourcing Journal. But is it even possible for eco-conscious fashion brands to source leather that’s produced in an eco-friendly and sustainable way?
The Environmental Costs of Conventional Leather Production
Today, most hides come from bovines like cows, sheep, and goats. In 2015, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that around 3.8 billion cows and other bovine animals were used in leather production each year, which comes down to approximately one animal for every two people on the planet.
The rearing of livestock for the meat and leather industry, especially on the extensive scale on which it’s done for bovines, has severe environmental impacts. Deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, as well as water and land overuse, are high contributing factors to climate change.
The Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) provides information on the impacts of materials used in the production of apparel, footwear, and home textiles. It gives most leathers an impact of 159 or more, due to its high contribution to global warming, water use, and pollution. In comparison, synthetic leather shows an impact of 43, cotton a 98, and polyester a 44.
Then there’s the tanning process. Tanning turns to hide into leather by altering the protein structure of the skin to make it more durable and less susceptible to decomposition.
Most tanners still use a process called “chrome tanning” to tan their hides, which includes chromium tanning agents, which produce the highly noxious carcinogenic chromium. This method is faster than others, but the chromium sulfates used are harmful to health and the environment. The regulations governing chromium sulfates have closed down tanneries in the US and in Europe - but in developing countries, they often flow straight into local waterways, along with other untreated waste laced with lead, arsenic, and acids.
Up and Coming: Sustainable Leather Production
Leather is made of dead animal skin and will therefore never be animal-friendly. And tanning and manufacturing of any kind will always have some sort of environmental impact.
However, hides mostly come from animals raised for their meat; they’re a byproduct from another industry rather than taking up additional resources. And while vegetable tanning is more expensive and doesn’t always yield the necessary softness, it produces more eco-friendly leather.
It’s important to understand that you’re looking at a spectrum. It isn’t black or white, ethical or unethical, environmentally friendly or polluting. Instead, leather production falls on a spectrum. Companies striving to be eco-friendly must try to ensure their activities have minimal negative impact by working according to best practices and international standards.
But leather tanning can definitely be more eco-friendly and sustainable than conventional methods allow - Green Hides’ EcoLifeTM collection, for example, meets ambitious goals, like chrome-free tanning and solvent-free finishing. It even avoids salt treatments and conserves water by using only the freshest hides. The leather is produced according to European environmental normative, and uses neither pentachlorophenol, an organochlorine compound, nor chlorofluorocarbons.
How can Green Hides guarantee this eco-friendly and sustainable leather production?
In theory (only!), it’s easy: they know every step of their leather supply chain.
The Key Lies in Your Supply Chain
Leather’s supply chain is complex; the production is a mostly horizontal process across a myriad of countries and suppliers. Just identifying the animal’s origin (was it domesticated or wild?) can be extremely difficult. As an importer, you aren’t in control of the leather production stages, unless you own the entire supply chain, which is highly unlikely.
Yet many eco-conscious fashion brands make an effort to understand their supply chain and to source from suppliers who obtain and treat their hides in sustainable, eco-friendly ways. But to understand whether you’re on the right track, a brand needs to first comprehend the leather supply chain.
3 Stages of Leather Production
There are three stages of manufacturing leather products:
obtaining raw materials,
rearing livestock or catching wild animals
slaughter
leather production,
preparing the hides
tanning
crusting
producing the finished leather goods.
As we’ve already mentioned, the first two stages are especially problematic to handle in a sustainable, eco-friendly, and ethical way, but let’s take a closer look at them from a supply chain point of view.
Issues Encountered When Obtaining the Raw Materials
The availability of the hides for leather material is affected by environmental factors common to the main producing countries and regions, and depends on:
Climate change
Water scarcity
Environmental pollution
Raising of the animals
Nutrition of the animals
Living conditions of the animals
In addition, there are several human factors that also affect the leather supply chain:
Human rights
Effects on local populations – noise, pollution, buying up of land
Safety and health of the workers
With such a large number of possible external issues that affect stage 1 of your supply chain, it’s no surprise that leather is difficult to source in an ethical way.
Issues Encountered In Leather Production
Consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious and have a lower tolerance for environmental pollution and unsustainable textile manufacturing practices. If fashion brands want to offer their buyers sustainable and eco-friendly items, their first step is to choose leather from suppliers that meet international environmental compliance laws and standards.
Issara, a Melbourne-based brand that sells premium leather bags and accessories, sources their hides from New Zealand, which is renowned for its animal husbandry techniques and has strict animal welfare assurance requirements. The company also produces bags on demand instead of running a mass production, which minimizes wastage.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of sustainable leather suppliers from which brands like Issara can source their eco-friendly leathers.
Suppliers of Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Leather
In business since 1837, at the Gerberei Zeller in Steffisburg Switzerland they process all types of leather and skins using only vegetable tanning agents. The Tropenhaus Frutigen fish farm in Switzerland, a pioneering effort for the sustainable breeding of Siberian sturgeon sends their skins to be processed into fish leather here.
There’s Stahl, world leader in the specialty chemistry of coatings, processing and treatments - including leather tanning. The company supports the move to zero discharge of hazardous chemicals and pushes for a transparent and sustainable supply chain. Stahl is actively trying to replace petrochemicals with renewable resources in compliance with their mission of “Responsible Chemistry”.
EcoHides treats their leathers with only the most environmentally friendly, sustainable materials, promising “gorgeous leather hides with amazing durability and eco-friendly style”.
Another leather supplier focussed on the environment is Sørensen. The company strives to fulfill the strictest environmental requirements in the industry. Sørensen maintains that leather is actually a very sustainable product when produced in environmentally friendly ways.
Then there’s Foremost, a manufacturer of synthetic leather that develops a series of high-end eco-friendly synthetic leathers called N°Pelle® since 1985. Foremost is devoted to providing DMF- and cruelty-free vegan leather alternatives, that still look and feel like leather.
Who knew you can make leather-like materials from pineapples - from the fibers of pineapple leaves, to be exact. Ananas Anam creates this material, called Piñatex, by extracting the fibers from the leaves. They are turned into a base material to make durable wallets and bags.
As you can see, there are a myriad of suppliers focussed on producing sustainable and eco-friendly leather or leather alternatives that environmentally-conscious fashion brands can source their materials from - and they’re just the tip of the iceberg.
Leather Supply Chain Awareness
Knowing and understanding every origin and step of every item, fabric, and material in a brand’s supply chain, is an effort of Herculean proportions. Supply-Chain management (SCM) software, especially cloud-based, can help your supply chain’s transparency - but it’s only as good as the information it’s fed.
An SCM software’s main focus lies on optimizing order management, production planning across warehouse locations, and reducing order cycle times, rather than on providing brands with transparency into their suppliers’ production processes, materials manufacturing, or working conditions.
This is where Bomler comes into play. It provides a platform for brands to bring more transparency into their supply chain, as well as for end consumers to gain insight into just that supply chain - and for suppliers and manufacturers to offer their eco-friendly and sustainably produced goods to brands.
You want to close the gap between buyer expectations of supply chain transparency and your brand’s ability to provide it?
Obtain transparency data and keep track of it within your own organization then offer it to your customers.
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