Leather manufactured using Wet-Green’s tanning agent, developed from discarded olive leaves, has added to the sustainability story that Škoda is able to share with customers about its first purpose-built electric vehicle.

The chief executive of automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM) Škoda Auto, Thomas Schäfer, is proud of the company’s recent achievements in sustainability. Every April, like other brands in the Volkswagen group, it encourages its 45,000 employees to use one hour of work time on Earth Day to raise awareness about climate change and environmental protection.

For Earth Day 2022, Mr Schäfer said he wanted as many people as possible to take part in workshops to learn how they can take personal responsibility for spreading the word, and added that he hoped lively discussions would ensue. On earlier Earth Days, he pointed out, groups of employees had formed carpools, devised “micro-mobility solutions” to cut down on fuel consumption at its production sites, and begun insisting on having only locally sourced food at company events.

As an example of the “great success” he insists Škoda has had in improving sustainability in recent years, he pointed to the new Enyaq iV sports utility vehicle (SUV), launched in 2021 as the company’s first purpose-built electric car. “We continue to advance electric mobility,” the chief executive said on Earth Day, before pointing to the sustainable options also on offer in the car’s interior.

Six design selections

Škoda has launched the Enyaq iV with no fewer than six design selections for customers to choose from for the interior of their vehicles: Loft, Lodge, Lounge, Suite, EcoSuite and SportLine. Half of these feature some leather and one of them, EcoSuite, tells a special leather story. The cognac-coloured leather on the seats in the EcoSuite version of Enyaq iV is produced using the Olivenleder tanning agent that Reutlingen-based start-up Wet-Green has developed.

Olivenleder is the result of a patented process. It is a vegetable concentrate based on an aqueous olive leaf extract. It is free from metals, is “completely harmless over the entire value chain”, Wet-Green states, and allows tanners to reduce the volume of acids, salts, syntans and dyestuffs they use compared to many traditional tanning methods. What is more, an entire step of the tanning process, the traditional pickling stage, is no longer required, the start-up insists.

Growing on trees

The extract is made entirely from leaves from olive trees. These leaves become available in large volumes in olive-growing regions of Mediterranean countries during the pruning of the trees and the harvesting of the olives and, traditionally, farmers have simply burned them. Wet-Green is providing these farmers with additional income by paying a fair price for the leaves and turning them into the Olivenleder tanning agent instead.

Materials of the future

All of this appealed to the head of colour and trim at Škoda, Katerina Vranóvá. It is she who is responsible for the choice of materials that go into the company’s car interiors, including that of the Enyaq iV. She says the EcoSuite version, with cognac-coloured leather made using Olivenleder, is a personal favourite in the new electric model.

Fashion, architecture, daily life and the people she meets all provide Ms Vranóvá with inspiration, she says, but nature does, too, and she insists that the materials of the future will be materials we can make by recycling raw components and recycle again at end of life. Wet-Green says that Olivenleder works well with this because it is biodegradable and free from pollutants. It is not just less harmful than many alternatives, but something that is positively good for the environment the start-up insists. “Recycled materials, sustainable materials are the future,” Katerina Vranóvá says. “We should go to zero-waste.”

The leather in the EcoSuite interior is “definitely a favourite”, she adds and she explains that the qualities she wants this and any material to bring to the design are comfort, timelessness, softness and cosiness. Škoda is among the automotive companies that think car interiors will increasingly become more like people’s living-rooms. “For the Enyaq iV, we were inspired by the idea of stepping into your favourite kind of room and then taking it for a drive in an all-electric SUV,” the head of colour and trim says.

Her favourite interior is, she says, “every inch, the definition of sophisticated fashion”. She describes the colour combination, which contrasts the cognac-coloured leather with ebony panels on the doors, as beautiful, the leather itself as “sleek” and the beige stitching as one of the “precious upholstery details” that abound throughout. The overall effect is comfortable, but highly elegant, she says. “It’s a magnificent choice,” she concludes, “if you want to feel special every time you get in.”

Parent group Volkswagen has applauded Škoda’s decision to specify leather that uses olive leaf extracts as a tanning agent, saying: “To conserve natural resources and establish circular economies in the mobility sector, the use of more sustainable materials is more important than ever.” And it adds that harvesting leftover materials, the way Wet-Green does for Olivenleder, can contribute to OEMs’ efforts to make vehicles more sustainable. Wet-Green has pointed out that leather manufactured using its tanning agent is also in use in other parts of the group, in cars that Porsche, Audi and Volkswagen have already brought to market.

The EcoSuite version of Škoda’s new Enyaq iV SUV.
All credits: Škoda Auto

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