A European Commission-backed project has shown that tanneries can successfully use the ECO2L tool to calculate the carbon footprint of their product. 

Europe’s leather industry has brought its Green Deal Leather project to a conclusion and has shared an average figure for the carbon footprint of bovine leather produced in the European Union.

Green Deal Leather launched in September 2023 with a focus on workplace safety as well as on carbon footprint. Main project partners were industry representative body COTANCE and trade union organisation industriAll Europe.

On the first point, they have made it clear that they know there is still room for improvement in safety in the workplace, but their study of figures for the period from 2019 to 2021 shows a fall of 16% in tannery-related accidents. The study spans seven EU countries (Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Portugal, Hungary and Austria) where the total number of incidents fell to 1,102 in 2021. More than 90% of those accidents were of “minor severity” and 15% of them occurred when people were travelling between work and home. “With the project’s preliminary results serving as a baseline, we must now work together to achieve zero accidents,” says industriAll secretary general, Judith Kirkton-Darling. There is no sustainability without workplace safety, the project partners insist.

Average figures

On carbon footprint, the project’s headline finding is an average figure of 8 kilos of CO₂-equivalent as the carbon footprint of 1 square-metre of finished bovine leather produced in the European Union. Audited leather manufacturers in Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Portugal collected carbon footprint data from their own operations and have, through the project, been able to use the ECO2L tool, developed over the last ten years by German national industry association VDL, to translate the data into carbon footprint measurements that are easy to share with customers.

COTANCE has explained that some participating tanneries registered lower figures than the average, and some higher. The lowest the project recorded was around 4.2 kilos of CO₂-equivalent per square-metre of leather, while the highest was closer to 12 kilos. Its secretary general, Gustavo González-Quijano, points out that the discrepancies in these figures stem from the huge diversity in leather production in Europe. Different hide thicknesses and different treatments produce different results and this has inevitably led to a range of figures, he says.

He adds that an average of 8 kilos puts European bovine leather at a similar level for carbon footprint to that of many plastic-based synthetic materials. “It is a good comparison,” he says. “The Green Deal Leather project deliberately took no account of the upstream carbon footprint of livestock, just as analyses of synthetic materials take no account of the impact of the petrochemicals that make the plastics they use.”

Taking into account the upstream carbon footprint of a cow is still a controversial question when it comes to leather’s carbon footprint. Even in the industry, there are differences of opinion. Some say all of the environmental burden should be on the livestock farmers and meat and dairy companies that raise the cattle and send them to slaughter. Others say he leather industry should accept its share because it derives economic benefit from the hides becoming available. The COTANCE secretary general explains that the upstream CO₂ emissions would dominate the overall calculation for leather so much that differences between tanneries would become invisible.

Beyond the numbers

Mr González-Quijano believes it is important to view leather manufacturers’ use of the ECO2L tool as something more than a way of putting a number on the carbon footprint of the material they produce. “It will flag up areas for rapid improvement for the industry,” he says. “It will give an opportunity to explain the implications of the figure and show why customers should be cautious about other information they may have seen online about the carbon footprint of leather.” He says that, even though leather and synthetic materials have more or less that same carbon footprint when they leave their respective places of production, the comparison changes radically when you include factors such as durability and product longevity. “Then, leather triumphs,” he insists. 

On the question of rapid improvement, he explains that much can still happen to lower the impact of the chemicals that tanners use, and he adds that much can still be done in leather production, too, most notably in waste reduction. “We are keen to achieve these improvements,” he says. “We are highly committed to environmental protection in this industry. And to improve, you need to measure and establish reliable references.”

Energy control

We have told the story of ECO2L before. To recap quickly, VDL launched it in 2012 as a label that would present finished leather as being “energy controlled”, the phrase from which the name comes. In 2022, VDL announced an upgrade to the original ECO2L. Version 2.0 is still about making tanneries more energy-efficient, but this now includes scope-three data. Scope three brings the impact from external suppliers into the calculation, including data from the chemicals that tanners use to make leather. This makes it possible to calculate the carbon footprint of the leather the tannery produces. Energy efficiency is still the core aim of the process. VDL’s insistence is that products can only be sustainable if manufacturers are able to bring them to market in an energy-efficient manner. Calculating carbon footprint too is an added bonus.

Good work

In the eyes of VDL managing director, Andreas Meyer, using ECO2L to calculate the carbon footprint of a square-metre of their finished leather and comparing the result against the EU average will help tanners show their customers and the wider community that they do good work. They take raw material that would otherwise go to waste and transform it into something circular, renewable, versatile, high-performance, long-lasting and breathtakingly beautiful. “Tanners, traditionally, have not enjoyed a good image,” Mr Meyer suggests. “This is why tanneries usually had to be on the edge of town and the people who ran them usually had to keep their heads down and stay quiet.”

He believes this has had lasting repercussions. Events lasting several days with the circular economy as their theme take place in a number of countries around the world now. Leather never features. When the organisers contemplate case studies and forward-thinking in the circular economy, the leather industry does not cross their minds. There can be no doubt that the leather industry is an ongoing source of strong stories and the excellent examples; we know because World Leather has published a dedicated section on leather and the circular economy since the start of 2020. The total number of articles that have appeared in this section so far is 148 and we know that there are many more to come. But, as in the scenarios from years gone by that Andreas Meyer refers to, the industry remains out of sight and out of mind for many.

“We do not have a very high profile,” the VDL managing director says again. “I think those old attitudes towards tanneries are part of the reason why. We have made the ECO2L tool available because we want to show people how good we are. But it’s like in the 100-metres sprint final at the Olympics. You cannot just talk about it. You have to run the race and show what you can do. And another part of this is that we want tanners to see for themselves how well they are doing with regard to environmental responsibility.”

A fair comparison

His insistence is that, until now, making a fair comparison between the different impact of different types of leather has been difficult because of the number of ways that exist to produce the material.

“You have to look at the whole process,” he continues. “If you compare chrome tanning to tanning with plant-based products, for example, you might initially see an improvement with the plant-based system, but then realise that when you include the impact of finishing and cleaning you are not saving overall. It’s not just about one chemical versus another. And if you want to dehair hides, you need to use chemicals. If you choose not to and decide to produce hair-on hides, you will consume more energy. And if you decide to recover waste material and do something with it, this also will mean using more energy. It’s complex. This is why you have to look at the whole system.”

Open to the world

Extensive work went into calculating the Green Deal Leather average figure. The production analysis covered 10.2 million square-metres of finished leather, with the ECO2L tool recording the data, independent auditors checking the figures and a peer-review process counter-checking their plausibility.

The ECO2L tool has gone into active service in tanneries all over the world and the VDL managing director wants more leather manufacturing companies to take up the invitation, too. There is a process to follow and work to do before tanners can tap into the benefits the tool can deliver. They will need to request and fund an onsite ECO2L audit. There are guidelines and a downloadable preparation mechanism to help make sure the audit goes smoothly. The resulting data will go into the ECO2L tool to deliver product carbon footprint figures for the product mix of the audited tannery. The organisation that carries out a peer review to make sure the results are plausible is research and testing organisation FILK Freiberg Institute. 

As well as the carbon footprint data, audited tanneries also receive ECO2L certification, which they can use as part of their promotional efforts for three years. “Participants do not have to be members of VDL,” Mr Meyer makes clear. “We are open to the whole world.”

Image Credit: Alliance France Cuir
ECO2L is a programme that has been running since 2012 to help leather manufacturers become more energy-efficient. Now, tanners can use it to calculate their product carbon footprint as well.

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