LCA should give leather credit for what happens upstream
Global head for business development and industry relations at leather chemicals group TFL, Dr Dietrich Tegtmeyer, has said he believes lifecycle assessment (LCA) calculations do livestock farming an injustice.
Companies across countless industries are using LCA methodology to calculate the carbon footprint of their products. But Dr Tegtmeyer has said the way the methodology works makes the calculations more difficult for companies that make or sell products that have a connection to livestock, including leather.
“In an LCA,” he has said, “livestock grazing is counted as problematic land use. The rainwater that nature needs to photosynthesise grass-growth is counted as a bad water footprint for products like milk, meat or leather.”
He said that, from his point of view, these assumptions are incorrect. Instead, he insists, the companies that produce milk, meat and leather should receive extra credit in LCA exercises. Their links, as products or by-products, to livestock farming are a positive thing, Dr Tegtmeyer has said, making the point that livestock farming contributes to regenerative agriculture.
He explained: “About 70% of agricultural land is pasture land. Nature does not provide the regenerative power to cultivate arable crops on this land, or the landscape is not suitable for arable farming owing to slopes, for example. If we did not graze livestock on this land, something important would be missing in the overall system. Grazing, manure and the tamping down of the soil all promote grass growth. This land is, therefore, a CO2 sink.”
