Three global industry bodies support 0% livestock carbon footprint argument for leather
15/10/2012
This meeting provided an opportunity to review progress on ongoing joint projects such as the prospects for an international leather mark, development of a database on legislation and standards in the leather sector, preparation of a technical information document on chromium III and chromium VI and preservatives available to leather producers. However, the main focus of the meeting was the report prepared for the UNIDO Leather Panel taking place at the same time on the methodology for calculating the carbon footprint of leather.
UNIDO and European representative body COTANCE have both said they want calculations of the carbon footprint of leather to be fairer. In light of the lack of a single methodology for working out leather’s environmental footprint, the organisations have brought to the attention of the industry a new technical report on the subject from Milan-based consultant Federico Brugnoli.
The Global Leather Co-ordinating Committee has warmly endorsed the Brugnoli report and representatives of ICHSLTA, ICT and IULTCS were also present at a follow-up meeting in Bologna on October 10 to welcome the formal adoption of the report.
The key point in the report is the conclusion on the “system boundaries” for leather production, the Global Leather Co-ordinating Committee has said. In this conclusion, Federico Brugnoli establishes that the calculation of the carbon footprint for leather production should begin at the slaughterhouse and end at the tannery gate when the leather is shipped. The effect of this would be to exclude any of the agricultural footprint involved in animal rearing from attaching to the hide or skin in most situations.
This is based on the concept, put forward originally in a scientific paper in1999, that in the case of co-products and by-products arising from renewable materials, the carbon footprint or other environmental footprints should be allocated to the “determining product”, that is the product for which demand determines the amount of production. In other words, animals are essentially raised and kept for meat, milk or wool and not for their hides and skins and therefore it is to those industries and not to leather that the environmental footprint of livestock should be allocated.
The partners within the The Global Leather Co-ordinating Committee have said they will now collaborate on a project to elaborate further the detailed calculation of carbon and other environmental footprints for leather based on “the rigorous application of reliable data obtained from key players in the industry sector”.
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