Nowhere to hide for the leather industry
Human evolution and climate change
Similar to the situation in which we found ourselves now, the first humans required a deep understanding of the environment they lived in as well as an ability to adapt to changes in weather patterns to ensure their survival.
Variability in climate conditions altered landscapes as well as the fauna and flora available to humans. The malleability of social structures and human behaviour enabled our ancestors to adapt to changes in environmental conditions and to cope with uncertainty.
Leveraging the environment for survival
Our ancestors owed a lot to animals for their survival, whether it be for food sources, toolmaking, clothing or a wide range of other use cases. Animal skins soon become much more than a by-product of hunting, enabling humans to survive through harsh environmental conditions.
Leather was pivotal for protection, by providing warmer clothing, as well as for survival with better tools for hunting or warfare. The first evidence of leather-based tools dates back to 400,000 BC. From the Stone Age to Modern Times, our societies have greatly benefited from the use of leather goods.
The current state of the leather industry
Starting as a craft, leather making was soon shaped by manufacturing processes. During the Industrial Revolution, the invention of chromium tanning enabled the production of leather goods of superior quality at greater speed.
Globally, the leather industry generates more than $80 billion in revenues every year. As the world population continues to expand and experience increases in wealth, demand for meat will increase, supplying a steady flow of raw material to the leather industry.
Beyond the supply of raw materials, increases in wealth will drive demands for leather-based goods, in part by growing middle classes. As China continues to be a leader in the manufacturing of leather goods for export, it is seeing increases in domestic demand.
The truth behind leather’s environmental impact
Leather is not purely a by-product of the meat industry, with the leather industry simply recycling goods that would go to waste. Defenders of the industry imply that the manufacturing of leather has no impact on the upstream highly carbon-intensive animal farming.
However, leather manufacturers provide valuable revenues to the cattle and dairy industries, a dependence that can lead to considerable losses for the meat industry due to highly volatile and declining hide prices.
Beyond the sourcing of the raw material, the tanning of the hides is an extremely polluting manufacturing process. Tanning requires intensive use of carcinogenic chemicals such as arsenic and chromium.
When it comes to product carbon footprints, it is important to examine the added emissions resulting from the processing of leather:
- If the hides were to be discarded by the meat industry to landfill, the decomposition would emit 94 kg of CO2e per square metre of hides.
- The total emissions of turning hides into leather are 110 kg of CO2e per square metre of hides, an additional 16 kg of CO2e than if the hides were to be discarded.
- Therefore, the manufacturing of a cow skin leather jacket would emit 176 kg of CO2e on average.
Some vegan alternatives are not perfect
So what can we do as consumers if we want leather-based products without feeling responsible for the environmental impact of their production?
The vegan leather industry is growing, with an expectation of being worth nearly $90 billion by 2025. However, not all vegan leather products are created equal.
Although these products are an attractive alternative to the skins of billions of animals slaughtered every year, some of the faux-leather materials aren’t perfect from an environmental point of view.
Some faux leather is produced with plastic materials, requiring fossil fuels to manufacture the pieces of clothing. Beyond the initial sourcing of the material, there are concerns relating to the end of life of plastic-based products which may contribute to microplastic pollution of our oceans.
Pineapple to the rescue
The use of pineapple can be controversial in some instances, just ask any Italian that has seen the yellow fruit being put on pizza.
In the case of leather, pineapple can be a great substitute and that is exactly what Ananas Anam has found. Having been certified as a B-Corp, they are on a mission to balance generating a profit and positive social impact while ensuring their environmental impact remains low.
Every year, pineapple agriculture generates 13 million tonnes of waste. The company is aiming to turn that waste into gold with their Piñatex material made from the leaves of the pineapple plant.
Through purchasing this waste from farmers in the Philippines, they have generated £200,000 in additional revenues for local farming communities. From an environmental perspective, Ananas Anam has created a material that contains no harmful chemicals or products.
In my eyes, companies like Ananas Anam highlight how manufacturing and supply chain processes can be replicated by learning from industry giants while making considerable changes to reduce their environmental impact. Similarly to animal hides, pineapples leaves are also a waste product of an industry, simply one that does not harm animals and which has a lesser environmental impact.
