Traceability: work must start now for 2025
The ability to reassure brands, retailers and consumers that leather and finished leather products have no links to deforestation is something that affects everyone in the European leather industry, the secretary general of COTANCE, Gustavo González Quijano has said.
Speaking at the Sustainable Leather Forum in Paris on September 11, Mr González Quijano pointed out that the European Commission has published regulations that will enforce full traceability of hides by 2025.
He said systems for providing buyers with guarantees of no link to deforestation were not ready yet, but he said work was already under way to make sure the European leather sector can fulfil the requirements.
“We need to be ready,” he said, “because transparency will bring credibility for European leather and credibility will bring authority. We need to work right now to make sure all the necessary bureaucracy is in place, not only because 2025 is just around the corner, but because the cattle whose hides our tanners will process under the new regulations in 2025 are being born now.”
