Leather is available to us because livestock farmers raise animals to supply meat and dairy companies. It is demand for food rather than the desire for leather that leads to those animals going to slaughter. Leather is an afterthought, and the numbers prove it.  

Almost all the leather in the world comes from the by-products of the meat and dairy industries and the hides and skins would go to waste if tanners were not here to turn them into something more useful and desirable. It is however, still common to read and hear comments that deny the truth of this from people who oppose leather.

Famously, designer Stella McCartney once quipped on the subject of leather: “They say it’s a by-product. Well, I haven’t eaten lizard lately.” This is Ms McCartney some way short of peak form in terms of clear-thinking and rhetoric, but the sentiment behind her conflated argument is plain to see day after day in the marketing output of companies that want to make a positive impression on animal-focused, anti-meat and anti-leather campaign groups and consumers.

Exotics are separate

There are separate debates around the use of exotic skins. The high value of the leather that these skins can produce sets them apart from raw material from cattle, sheep and goats, even though the meat from the animals that supply exotic skins is also in demand.

There are two main strands to the sustainability arguments for exotic leather. The first is that this material’s high economic value means it can provide life-changing help to low-income communities in Africa, Australia, Asia and many parts of the Americas. The second is about conservation. Programmes that rely on selling exotic skins for funding are responsible for raising reptile or animal numbers when they go too low and for lowering them when they reach high enough levels to become a threat to communities or crops.

While brands such as Chanel and retail groups including Nordstrom and Selfridges have taken a specific stance against exotic leather in recent times, they have provoked a reaction from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). This organisation has said that science proves there is more to the exotic leather discussion than many commentators may realise. Dr Daniel Natusch from IUCN has commented: “Science has shown, perhaps counter-intuitively, that luxury brands have an important role to play in conserving reptile species and the habitats they rely on. Ignoring science risks jeopardising successful management systems around the world.”

Facts and figures

This article has another focus. Facts and figures that prove the dependence of the vast majority of leather companies on meat and milk are available for everyone to read and digest in a report from Italy this autumn. The report in question is the presentation by Italy’s main tanning industry body, UNIC, of the leather sector’s results for 2020.

Italian tanners’ reputation for working wonders with raw material of all kinds is deserved and undeniable. However, output from the industry in Italy in 2020 was completely dominated by finished leather made from cattle hides. In the report UNIC says that bovine leather commanded a 77% share of the 97.3 million square-metres of finished leather that constituted the country’s total output for the year. Tanners across Italy produced 75 million square-metres of finished bovine leather in 2020; this does not include sole leather for footwear.

Sheep leather was the second-biggest category with a production of 8.5 million square-metres, followed by goatskin, which contributed 6.7 million square-metres to the total, and calfskin, which reached 6.6 million square-metres. This gives those sources a share of 8.7%, 6.9% and 6.8% respectively. Leather from exotic skins, listed by UNIC under “other animals”, accounted for the rest, with a volume of 400,000 square-metres. This means 99.4% of all the leather Italian tanners produced in 2020 was from cattle, sheep and goats.

Total revenues from this volume of finished leather were just under €3.5 billion. Bovine leather contributed 75% of the total with €2.6 billion, earning tanners an average of €34.80 per square-metre. Sheep leather and goat leather were cheaper, averaging €28.51 and €28.15 per square-metre, respectively. Calf leather was more expensive, averaging €50.16 per square-metre.

No one-off

Last year was a far from typical period, for Italian tanners the same as for most in the industry, but figures from 2019 confirm the overwhelming prepon­derance of bovine, sheep and goat in the materials leather manufacturers use. Pre-covid, unsurprisingly, most values were higher than in 2020. Tanners produced 116.3 million square-metres of finished leather in 2019, again not including soling leather.

Bovine hides made 87.3 million square-metres, followed by sheepskins with 10.1 million, goatskins with 9.8 million and calfskins with 8.6 million. Skin from ‘other animals’ contributed only 500,000 square-metres to the total. This means cattle had a share of 75%, sheep 8.7%, goats, 8.4% and calves 7.4%. Together, these sources account for 99.5% of all the finished leather Italy produced in 2019.

The total value for finished leather in 2019 was just under €4.5 billion (not including sole leather), with bovine hides contributing 72.4%, sheep 7.5%, goats 7.3% and calfskins 10.2%. These figures blow any ‘animals are raised for leather’ arguments out of the water. 

Correlation does not imply causation. We have leather because of cattle in fields, but…
Credit: Corey Moffet/USDA

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