LHCA celebrates first-year success
A year after its formation, the Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA) has successfully merged and unified “two strong, established industry trade associations with diverse membership and interests”.
This was one of the highlights in a message that LHCA president, Stephen Sothmann, sent to members at the start of 2021.
LHCA launched at the start of 2020, as the result of a merger between the US Hide, Skin and Leather Association (USHSLA) and the Leather Industries of America (LIA).
Mr Sothmann said LHCA had been successful in combining the strengths of the two previous industry organisations and in establishing “one cohesive voice, advocating on behalf of the leather and hide industry as a whole”.
Areas in which he said LHCA had been active in defending the industry’s interests in its inaugural year included its efforts to convince the Sustainable Apparel Coalition to improve its treatment of leather in the Higg Index and its wider Choose Real Leather promotional campaign.
He pointed out that this had all happened “during a global pandemic that has upended our day-to-day lives”.
