Something for everyone
UNIDO will publish guidelines on calculating the carbon footprint of leather that companies in all parts of the industry will be able to use.
The United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) is forging ahead with work on new guidelines for assessing the environmental footprint of leather. UNIDO’s project manager for leather, Ivan Král, unveiled the idea at this year’s first edition of Lineapelle in Milan in February. He will offer a formal presentation of the definitive guidelines at 2024’s second edition of Lineapelle in September. “We want to create principles for carrying out environmental assessments,” he says, “and we want the guidelines to be something that all companies can use in their calculations.”
His argument is that there have already been too many false comparisons because studies such as lifecycle assessments (LCAs) have not covered the same aspects of production or of the upstream supply chain in the same way.
UNIDO is making use of, but reviewing, earlier work on this. The main sources it will look at include the final version of the product environmental footprint category rules (PEFCR) for leather that the European Commission approved in April 2018. A formal review of previous methodologies and recommendations for harmonisation that Federico Brugnoli published in 2012 will also be part of this, as will documentation on standards such as EN 16887.
Other dimensions
The guidelines that UNIDO will create from this and share in September will be science-based. Soon after Lineapelle, the report will go for peer review and publication. Mr Král says he does not want a carbon dioxide-equivalent per square-metre figure to be all that companies and consumers take away from this new initiative. He would like other dimensions, including the effect of durability on the carbon footprint of a long-lasting product to be an important component of the picture, too.
Other factors UNIDO wants to take into account include separate considerations for the methane and the CO2 carbon cycles, and also the extra impact on the environment of failing to put to good use the millions of available hides that go to waste every year. “We should use this natural material,” Mr Král says. “To use it would be much more responsible than throwing hides away and then have to produce other materials from synthetic fibres.”
The organisation is working closely with specialist consultancy Spin 360, of which Federico Brugnoli is the founder and chief executive, to create the guidelines, tapping into the Milan-based company’s expertise to make its analysis as comprehensive as possible. Through Spin 360, UNIDO has also been able to engage “a select group of global stakeholders” in discussions about the best ways to calculate the carbon footprint of leather. All of this insight is going into the guidelines and into what UNIDO hopes will become standardised methodologies that companies across the global leather industries will be able to use.
Friends and partners
To extend as widely as it can the network of friends and partners that will help it in this effort, UNIDO has also issued a call for expressions of interest in taking part in an official technical advisory group. Members of the technical advisory group can be people from academia and research institutions, public authorities, United Nations organisations, non-government organisations, the meat industry and trade associations. They can also be from producers and users of leather, and representatives of leather chemicals and leather technology companies.
Members of the technical advisory group will need to have some knowledge of the leather industry and leather-related environmental matters, as well as knowledge and experience of LCA methodologies and good technical knowledge of the relevant standards. They will also need to be able to work in English.
“We at UNIDO are acting as an honest broker in this,” Ivan Král says, “trying to co-ordinate the work, to prepare the scientific paper we will publish and have it peer-reviewed. There is a lot to the process and it is not easy.” No remuneration is available for taking part in the technical advisory group and most of the work will take place during the summer, but UNIDO has said members will benefit from being part of the peer review process, participating in meetings, networking with like-minded professionals and keeping up to date with the latest trends and innovations.
Double benefit
Harmonisation, Ivan Král insists, will benefit the leather sector in two important ways. “It will help the leather industry become more transparent,” he says, “and we all know this is important because we know how concerned consumers are about the environment. But it is also good to do this because it will help the leather industry improve.”
He confirms that the new guidelines will help companies in all parts of the world and will show them what aspects of their work they can focus on to bring their carbon footprint down. He is confident this will help convince consumers that leather is a good choice and encourage them to demand and support the use of the renewable materials so that the volume of these materials that is going to waste at the moment declines. “I have heard that 35% of the hides that are available worldwide to be made into leather is going to waste,” he points out. “And I know that is a conservative estimate.”
The guidelines will help companies across the global leather industry respond to brands’ and consumers’ requests for transparency about leather’s environmental impact.
Credit: WTP
