PrimeAsia responds to request for shared LCA data
Leather manufacturing group PrimeAsia has published data from its recently completed lifecycle assessment (LCA) on the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s (SAC) Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI).
PrimeAsia completed its LCA in March 2021, after 12 months’ work. This involved collecting information from more than 3000 data points across five countries.
Publishing the results on the newest version of Higg MSI (version 3.2), means PrimeAsia’s scores will be accessible to all users of the platform. The Higg Index is widely used by fashion brands and manufacturers to inform their materials selection.
Leading leather industry bodies wrote to the SAC in October to ask it to suspend the score the non-profit organisation applies to leather in the MSI. The SAC’s initial response was to refuse. It said leather industry bodies and companies in the leather value chain should submit data that will, perhaps, help the SAC “improve the tools” it uses to compile the Higg Index.
PrimeAsia’s chief sustainability officer, Fernando Bellese, said that it was in responose to this that the group had decided to share the information from its LCA with Higg Index users.
“It is very important that the leather industry start to run more science-based assessments and share those results outside the industry to qualify the discussion around the impact and benefits of leather,” Mr Bellese said. “We believe this is an important step towards offering more updated and reliable information to back those discussions. But that is not enough and it is important that more companies answer the call to action.”
Image shows PrimeAsia chief executive, Jon Clark, speaking at the group’s tannery in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province in Vietnam.
