Leather Pipeline: time to see through insincere sustainability claims
03/09/2019
The report pulls no punches: consumer product brands are keen to apply the term ‘sustainable’ to their products, which many justify by pointing to their use of some recycled materials. But they continue to consume large volumes of non-renewable resources to make clothes, shoes and accessories from synthetic fibres while refusing to make better use of the genuinely renewable resource that leather represents.
“Companies that are in the fast fashion business, preferring artificial and petrol-based materials simply for cost and price reasons, have suddenly become sustainable when they collect and recycle a fraction of what they created previously,” the report says.
It argues that we should continue to hope for change because it cannot be long before commentators in the mass media realise that “something is completely wrong” with this message. It adds: “There is no excuse for using more plastic than is necessary and there is no excuse for failing to use material [leather] that can have a significantly longer lifecycle and save many resources. There is no excuse for destroying a natural resource that is nothing other than a by-product.”
Subscribers can read the full report in our Market Info section.
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