{"id":5776,"date":"2025-08-26T17:10:36","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T15:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magazine.lineapelle-fair.it\/?p=5776"},"modified":"2025-09-01T16:10:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T14:10:17","slug":"standardised-and-shared-introducing-the-leather-leaders-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magazine.lineapelle-fair.it\/en\/green-corner-en\/standardised-and-shared-introducing-the-leather-leaders-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Standardised and shared: introducing the Leather Leaders project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leather Leaders is a project promoted by UNIC \u2013 Concerie Italiane in collaboration with SPIN360 and has a (very) ambitious goal. It aims to draw up a common protocol, consisting of shared standards, as well as scientifically sound data and results. To clear up the green confusion and, above all, too many sensational errors<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

by Luca Fumagalli<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“Scientific data shows that 85-90% <\/b>of the environmental impact reported in brands’ sustainability reports depends on the materials they purchase. Production chains, industrial processes and global transport are much more important than the management of offices and shops. As a result, all brands that have a significant leather purchasing component find our material among those that contribute most significantly to their environmental impact. This is because they very often use deeply flawed data<\/b>.” These are the words of Fabrizio Nuti, <\/b>president of UNIC \u2013 Concerie Italiane. <\/b>Strong, detailed, alarming. Uttered during the last General Assembly of the leading association for the world’s leading tanning sector \u2013 the Italian one \u2013 last July. How can this situation be resolved? Nuti has clear ideas: by “implementing genuine supply chain collaborations, <\/b>from which everyone can benefit, relying on serious and up-to-date scientific <\/b>data and evidence. <\/b>This is how the Leather Leaders <\/b>project was born.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The Leather Leaders project<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

Easy to say, of course. Extremely complicated to do. But the objectives of the Leather Leaders project \u2013 in addition to being (very) ambitious \u2013 show a particularly sensitive level of urgency and necessity, given a leather supply chain and, in a broader sense, the fashion industry, where the challenge of sustainability and innovative research into performance and solutions for materials is played out on a daily basis. This, in a nutshell, explains the reasons behind Leather Leaders, on which UNIC has been working in collaboration with SPIN3360 (a consulting firm specialising in sustainable innovation), launching a process that aims to bring together a select group of brands and companies to draft a common protocol and share scientifically sound data and results.<\/span><\/p>\n

A surplus of compliance mechanisms<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

“85-90% of the environmental impacts reported in brand sustainability reports,” Spin360 reiterates, “fall within the so-called Scope 3: that is, they depend on purchases. Tanneries themselves must comply with a large number of compliance mechanisms<\/b>, which can divert valuable resources away from innovation, which is crucial to achieving the improvements demanded by customers themselves.”<\/span><\/p>\n

No less, no more: better<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

It is therefore customers who are the target audience of a project that aims to make them aware that, at least as far as leather is concerned, there is no need to ‘buy less’. Nor is there any need to activate supposed substitution mechanisms, favouring materials that \u2013 as many reports and studies have confirmed \u2013 are unreliable and do not guarantee adequate and comparable performance. The moral of the story is that we need to ‘buy better’. To do this, Leather Leaders wants to update the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) data in international databases and ‘collect and interpret sector-specific environmental impact data’. It also aims to: ‘develop a standard set of information to share with customers’ and, in this way, ‘reduce the effort required by suppliers to manage questionnaires and requests’. All of this, of course, is based on solid and fundamental scientific analysis. <\/span><\/p>\n

For example<\/span><\/b><\/h3>\n

The work is both high-profile and extremely challenging. For example, it involves calculating the carbon footprint<\/b>, which must also be updated in light of the 2028 ISO 14068 standard on carbon neutrality, which puts leather in a privileged position compared to synthetic fabrics. There is also the issue of the need to update this ‘platform’ in light of constantly evolving regulations, <\/b>with the European Union representing an impressive driver in terms of legislative volume. Consider the CSRD<\/b> regulations (which introduce sustainability reporting requirements for companies), the Ecodesign<\/b> regulation and the EUDR <\/b>(anti-deforestation). It will be essential to ‘analyse the durability of leather as a factor in reducing the impact of leather materials and products’. There is a lot, perhaps even more, to discuss. We will talk about it again.<\/span><\/p>\n

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