LHCA Unveils New Website, Highlights Global Marketing Success at Inaugural Annual Meeting

Leather’s Sustainability Emphasized at Virtual Event

Washington, DC, October 23, 2020 – The Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA) today unveiled a new, comprehensive website, www.usleather.org, during the association’s first Annual Meeting, which convened virtually amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The sleek, new, user-friendly site is a one-stop-shop for information about the U.S. hide, skin and leather industry, with content that will interest both industry novices and experts alike. Meeting attendees also received updates about LHCA’s acclaimed global leather marketing campaign and engaged in numerous discussions that underscored the sustainability of leather.

“The launch of LHCA’s new site culminates a year-long process to build a resource compendium for consumers, media, leather buyers and sellers and the entire leather supply chain,” said LHCA President Stephen Sothmann. “The website allows the U.S. industry to convey timely, pertinent information and to speak with one, unified voice. It is especially fitting that we introduced the site during the association’s inaugural Annual Meeting, one year after official merger documents were signed between the former U.S. Hide, Skin and Leather Association and Leather Industries of America.”

The streamlined, visually-striking, mobile-friendly website features the latest industry news, guidelines and standards and presents cutting-edge research, insightful fact sheets and valuable data in easily-digestible formats. A forthcoming public-facing, searchable member directory will facilitate networking and foster commercial opportunities by equipping buyers and sellers, importers and exporters, and others involved in the purchasing, processing and production of leather with the tools to identify appropriate companies with which to partner. The directory will be navigable by company type – hide or skin processors, meat packers, brokers, chemical suppliers and finished leather tanners, for example – and product type – cattle hides, pig skins, wet blue hides and finished leather, to name a few.

Although LHCA’s new site is more industry specific, it reinforces and amplifies the association’s innovative Real Leather. Stay Different. (RLSD) consumer-focused global marketing initiative, which celebrates the versatility, beauty, durability and sustainability of U.S. leather. Attendees to LHCA’s first Annual Meeting learned more about the campaign’s immense success, including its growing presence on more than 10 social media platforms, ranging from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to TikTok and WeChat, where its creative content has garnered millions of impressions.

RLSD’s impressive achievements, though, are not restricted to its extensive digital reach; instead, the campaign has drawn the attention of brands, retailers and the next generation of designers from around the world, many of whom participated in the first annual RLSD Global Student Design Competition. Although contests in China, Italy and the United Kingdom were temporarily paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taiwan’s competition persisted, largely unabated, and student designers were recently honored in Taipei with an Awards Ceremony and Product Showcase in recognition of their innovative work featuring real U.S. leather.

Both the new LHCA website and RLSD campaign provide prominent platforms to share leather’s story as a natural material that is more sustainable than its synthetic imitations – a theme that defined the association’s Annual Meeting this week. The conversation surrounding leather’s sustainability assumed renewed urgency in light of the global leather industry’s recent request that the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) suspend the score the non-profit organization applies to leather in its Higg Materials Sustainability Index. During the Annual Meeting, LHCA representatives and guest speakers explained to attendees that the methodologies and data used by the Higg Index are flawed and thereby burden leather with an unwarranted score, which is erroneously impacting its image among customers and consumers.

The Annual Meeting’s featured speakers, Maruicio Bauer, senior corporate engagement specialist at the National Wildlife Federation, and Veronica Bates Kassatly, an independent analyst in the sustainable apparel sector, further addressed sustainability concerns in their presentations.

“This has certainly been a challenging year, not only because of the difficulties that emerged from COVID-19, but also because the industry continues to contend with the ramifications of slumping global demand for leather, driven largely by misinformation about its environmental impact,” Sothmann said. “The LHCA Annual Meeting provided a critical forum to underscore the progress the industry has made despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and to reaffirm our commitment to advancing the incontrovertible truth about leather: it is beautiful, versatile, natural, and sustainable.”

LHCA’s first Annual Meeting convened virtually October 21-23, 2020, and included Board of Directors and committee meetings, along with other association business.

ABOUT THE LEATHER AND HIDE COUNCIL OF AMERICA

Formed by the 2020 merger of the United States Hide, Skin and Leather Association (USHSLA) and Leather Industries of America (LIA), the Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA) is a full-service industry trade association representing the entire U.S. leather supply chain, including meatpackers, hides and skins processors, traders, leather tanners, finished leather goods producers, footwear companies, chemical suppliers, machinery producers, trade media and market reporters, freight forwarders, transportation service providers, financial institutions and more. The association provides its members with government, public relations, and international trade assistance and support. LHCA is a cooperator organization under the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s foreign market development programs, assisting U.S. firms develop new markets for U.S. agricultural exports. LHCA is at the forefront of the industry’s needs, providing members with education and technical information to compete in today’s global marketplace.