Call for tanners to become water pioneers
04/06/2015
The main reasons Mr Peters offers for this include an increase in the availability of hides in North America and an ongoing reluctance on the part of footwear manufacturers to buy leather in the same volumes as in previous seasons. David Peters has said he believes the shoe leather business will pick up again in 2016, but insists that for 2015, taking into account lead times for the shipment of hides to principal producing countries such as China, for the production of leather, manufacture of finished footwear and shipment to shops in major markets, it’s probably already too late to hope for an upturn in 2015.
On a brighter note, his June blog is still positive about demand for automotive leather and also notes an increase in demand for furniture upholstery leather too.
However, the main message to come out in the column is that, with water becoming a precious resource in many parts of the world, tanners have to become pioneers in finding ways to reduce their use of water. “The leather industry is water-dependent,” Mr Peters says in the June column. “It’s the oxygen that breathes life into each and every type of leather we produce. Collectively we have an opportunity to demonstrate to our suppliers, customers and (more importantly) ourselves that ingenuity is alive and well residing at the heart of all tanneries. It is our responsibility to change the paradigm of water use in leather manufacturing before a city, state or federal government imposes restrictions on how we operate.”
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