Sustainability award for Lanxess ‘Green Leather’ concept
Specialty chemicals group Lanxess has been selected as one of the top Nordic innovators for its Green Leather Crust concept at an awards ceremony in Malmö, Sweden.
The Launch Nordic Forum’s objective is to identify sustainable innovations in materials, and judges received 80 applications from around the world.
LANXESS’ concept impressed the judges by showing how the use of advanced chemistry solutions can provide improvements. It included its X-Zyme beamhouse technology, the wet white tanning system X-Tan as well as the recently launched X-Biomer biopolymers for retanning.
“By combining these technologies we could show that in many ways a more sustainable leather production can be achieved without compromising on quality. This applies for example to the effluent load in tanneries,” said Dr Marc Hombeck, head of new business in Lanxess’ leather division.
Launch Nordic was created in collaboration with Launch founders Nasa, Nike, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Department of State. It is supported by Ikea, Novozymes, Kvadrat, 3GF, Danish Ministry of the Environment, the Fund for Green Business Development, the City of Copenhagen and Vinnova, the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems.
