LCA IS LEATHER REPORTING GAMECHANGER

• Prompts calls for transparency in sustainability calculations for ALL materials
• Prior estimates overstated the impact of animal husbandry [xx] fold (or by xx %) whilst that of tanneries are smaller than expected in many areas
• Impacts of dairy, grass fed and lot fed cattle also found to be significantly different
• President of L&HCA issues a challenge to producers of other materials

The Leather and Hide Council of America (L&HCA) has today published the independently conducted, fully transparent and International Organization of Standardization (ISO) compliant Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Leather from American cow hides. The Life Cycle Assessment, the most thorough conducted to date, examines the impacts of leather production from U.S. fields to tanneries worldwide.

The study, the first publicly accessible leather assessment to track the full environmental impact from the field in which the cow providing the hide was raised to leaving the tannery as the finished material, found that leather from U.S. hides has much lower impacts in CO2e emission, water use, land use and soil acidification than stated by other previously widely adopted indices. These indices failed to publish data and methodology and typically ranked man-made synthetic products as more sustainable.

The President of LHCA, Kerry Brozyna, said:

“The LCA sets a new standard in data quality and model transparency. If we are to champion sustainability, over price and convenience, all textile producers must match the quality and openness of data and methodology. Without that claims of sustainability are little more than greenwashing.”

“Originally the aim of the assessment was to support our producers, enabling them to make improvements and adopt best practice in sustainability. But what we have discovered is that the footprint in many areas is much lower than historically presented; Leather is significantly more environmentally-friendly, with a much lower eco footprint, than previously thought.”

Identifying the use of so-called pleathers and with their lack of LCA transparency he added:

“Leather has a reputation for performance and quality, as evidenced by many man-made textiles or ‘pleathers’ hijacking its name. Now we know that animal derived leather is not just a leader in performance but also in sustainability - from its sourcing to production, use, repurposing, recycling or disposal.”

Led by Greg Thoma Ph.D., Director of Agricultural Modeling and Life Cycle Assessment for the AgNext program at Colorado State University, the assessment uses the latest, detailed data direct from farms as well as from organisations including the U.S. Meat Export Federation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Spin360. It was funded by the Leather and Hide Council of America on behalf of the leather industry.

The LCA is completely open about all data and methodologies used and, being ISO compliant, will serve as a model for future assessments. It ranges from animal husbandry to tanning and includes not just an assessment of CO2e emissions but also water use, land use, soil acidification and human toxicity.

The impacts of different methods of cattle rearing were also found to be significantly different. The report assessed four different production systems, dairy only, beef only, the US average (combining dairy and beef), and an archetypical grass-finished system. The grass-finished systems CO2 impacts are about 40% higher than the US average and dairy systems about 50% lower.

Three different allocation scenarios were used: The current, European-standard Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) economic value of the hide (3.5%) as a percentage of the cow’s value, the U.S. hide mass fraction (4.8%), and the US economic value of the hide (1%). These results show the critical importance of the choice of the allocation method--environmental burdens are directly proportional to this allocation value.

Kerry Brozyna summarized:

“This LCA, and its findings, are great news - not just for the leather industry and the environment but for concerned consumers wanting to make the right choice. Its findings will aid manufacturers in their initial choice of materials, for example leather or plastics, and allow brands that already use leather to provide improved information on the sustainability of their products throughout the whole of the supply chain. Choosing the right materials from the outset is the foundation on which to build sustainability throughout manufacturing processes.

“We look forward to businesses reassessing their material choices, and those invested in leather examining how and where they can drive environmental inefficiency out of their supply chain, for example sourcing of hides from lower carbon husbandry practices.”

Greg Thoma concluded:

“This life cycle assessment was conducted with the best information available and covers the whole supply chain from U.S farm to tannery gates worldwide. We have published all the data and methodology used to encourage peer review and the future integration of any more relevant data that is available. I believe this is the most thorough and open life cycle assessment that has been undertaken for any textile material, but we must constantly seek more data on processes from all parts of the life cycle, particularly tanneries, as US hides are processed all over the world and standards vary from country to country and continent to continent.”