Italian leather reports low figure for water consumption
UNIC’s sustainability report for 2020 gives a low figure for water consumption to produce one square-metre of finished leather in Italy.
The report has said leather manufacturers in Italy are consuming, on average, 0.1095 cubic-metres (or 109.5 litres) for every square-metre of leather they produce.
Compared to figures UNIC compiled in 2003, this is an 18% improvement.
At the start of December, COTANCE, the leather industry’s representative body in the European Union, and trade union organisation industriAll Europe published a new social and environmental report on the leather sector.
Information included in that report is a figure for the average consumption of water in European tanneries of 0.121 cubic-metres per square-metre of finished leather. This represents an improvement of 7% compared to a similar report these organisations published in 2012.
Following the publication of the UNIC report, COTANCE explained that more tanneries working from wet blue and the types of leather manufacturers produce have an important bearing on water consumption.
It said that, while Italian tanners are “excellent” in their water management and deserve credit for this, a direct comparison of the UNIC and COTANCE figures is unhelpful.
“But it is helpful for our industry to start understanding the figures because they are part of the business culture of the future,” COTANCE continued. “The more we become used to managing lifecycle analysis data, such as those relating to the carbon footprint or the water footprint of leather, the better.”
Image: Consorzio Ponte a Egola.
