Animal-Based Materials Are Still Key To Sustainable Leather In Fashion

Leather has one of the highest carbon footprints of any material used by the fashion industry, putting it high on the agenda for brands to find alternatives to meet their sustainability targets.

Plant-based alternatives, including materials made primarily from food waste such as pineapple, grape and apple waste, have grabbed attention as some of the innovative solutions to this problem. But they’ve also come under criticism for often using PU coatings to make them more durable hindering biodegradability.

At Future Fabrics Expo, the largest sourcing trade show for responsibly produced materials, which took place in London in June and will host its New York edition in November, the leather solutions on offer are varied. Each exhibitor is carefully vetted to meet the show’s sustainability standards, and this includes both plant and animal-based alternatives. From unconventional skins, to recycled leather and regeneratively farmed leathers, it seems there’s still a place for animal skins in the fashion industry alongside much hyped vegan leather.

“We’re about solutions for a multitude of problems. There’s not any kind of one size fits all,” says Nina Marenzi, CEO of The Sustainable Angle, the organiser of Future Fabrics Expo. “We have to diversify the portfolio fibers, because that’s one of the biggest problems that we have at the moment. That very much comes down to leather, conventional cotton and polyester. So having a multitude of choices and communicating what’s behind that choice, I think that’s where we can be helpful at this moment in time,” she says.

Exploring a variety of leather types is also smart for business. Danish fashion brand Ganni has banned virgin leather from its products since the start of the year after finding it had the highest footprint in their material mix. In February, it launched footwear using Pélinova made by Recyc, one of the exhibitors at Future Fabrics Expo. Pélinova is a fusion of recycled leather scraps from the cutting room floor of factories and sustainably sourced lyocell from Lenzing which it claims has less than 10% of the carbon footprint of conventional leather and costs at least 30% less than most European leathers.

Ganni isn’t just working with Recyc though, it’s also working with plant and bacteria-based leather alternatives. “We have a platform called Fabrics of the Future where we are constantly trialing new fabric innovations and working to make these part of our main product offering,” explains Lauren Bartley, chief sustainability officer at Ganni. “It is very important that we cast the net wide when it comes to leather alternatives. We are heavily reliant on often small start-ups that need investment and commitment from brands in order to scale and commercialize, which means we cannot place our bets on only one innovation succeeding.”

Last year, material innovators Bolt Threads announced it was ceasing production of its mushroom leather alternative Mylo, despite backing from big fashion names including Kering, Adidas and Stella McCartney.

When considering whether plant-based or low impact animal-based leather is the best choice, consumer sentiment is another factor to consider. Plant-based leather-like materials have the benefit of being cruelty free, which is a non-negotioable for some brands and consumers, and carry connotations of innovation and novelty. However, particularly in the luxury sector, conventional leather is still widely associated with quality. More unique types of animal leather can still retain that benefit.

Luxury Swiss watch brand Oris has been using sustainably sourced deer leather for its watch straps since 2017. It sees its partnership with supplier Cervo Volante as a storytelling opportunity, as well as a sustainability draw.

Co-CEO of Oris, Rolf Studer, says: “Our consumers really seem to appreciate the story behind these straps, and they also see the quality when they put on the watch. We get lots of requests for more information as people want to dive deeper into the story of Cervo Volante and our collaboration,” he says.

In Switzerland, the wild red deer population is culled to prevent forest damage, crop damage and car accidents. Before Cervo Volante launched in 2016, the hides from this would go to waste. Today, the company repurposes between 1,800 and 2,500 hides per year to make leather shoes and accessories using vegetable tanning processes.

Studer says: “Leather from Cervo Volante shows the signs of a life lived to the fullest in the wild. There might be mosquito bites or scratches from fights. That’s pure nature, these deer have lived a free life in forests up on the Swiss mountains. And with the tanning done using all organic ingredients and based on very traditional methods, we also get a product that patinas very nicely over time, it really becomes a very personal strap after a while.”

Oris doesn’t currently work with any plant-based leather alternatives, having not been convinced by the quality or sustainability of the ones it has seen, although says it wouldn’t rule it out in the future.

For both animal and plant-based leather suppliers, rescuing waste is a common denominator. While conventional leather is also a by-product of the food industry, the over production of beef is a significant contributor to climate change with Science journal finding that every kilogram of beef consumed adds 99.5kgs of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gases to the environment. Reducing cow farming is essential to addressing the climate crisis and this is leading to less conventional forms of agricultural waste being used.

Another popular stand at Future Fabrics Expo was ICTYOS, a France-based producer of vegetable-tanned fish leather whose clients include Alexander McQueen and Zadig & Voltaire. Co-founder, Emmanuel Fourault, says: “Today, we are eating some fish and some meat, and we have the skins from both. The only sustainable solution is to reuse the skin into leather because if we don’t do that, we have to discard them.”

Fourault says that in Europe, 500,000 tons of fish skins are wasted every year.

Its unusual nature often sparks curiosity, says Fourault: “The first thing that people do when we say this is fish, is, they smell it. When they see it’s not smelling of fish, it’s good.”

Costs average at 20 Euros per skin which average 0.2 square meters.

ICTYOS produces both smooth leather and some with a scaled pattern which makes it appealing to brands who use exotic skins which often come from farms that breed only to use the skins. It has also developed a way to bond skins together in panels, without the need for sewing, to create larger sheets.

Innovation is also happening in the plant-based leather space and many suppliers are now able to offer plastic-free solutions.

Despite the many options, brands still face a difficult trade off having to balance cost, quality and varying environmental and social impact factors which vary depending on the material.

Merenzi says that consumers are sympathetic to this conundrum: “I think the consumer trends and choices are definitely influencing the brands, but I would think it would lead to feeding a multitude of choice,” she says. Merenzi references that many vegans and vegetarians find avoiding leather for shoes and bags can be prohibitive in choice and cost, so have to make compromises in their personal lives, and therefore understand when brands have to do the same.

There may not be perfect solutions just yet, but progress is still essential, says Merenzi:

“Now, better than ever, there are so many different options. So, I do think just to say, ‘Oh, we’re going to keep trudging on the way we always have’, that is completely unacceptable. That I think we can all agree on.”

Her advice to brands is to understand the impact of their current supply chain, ask the right questions and form long-term partnerships to help existing suppliers to transition to sustainable practices and help new, innovative suppliers to scale.