The Responsibilities of Leather Farming:

Brands Wake Up to the Destructive Impact of Leather Production by Bella Web;

 Response

For quite some time, activists and companies have been collectively begging both consumers and brands to focus on their sustainability efforts. More recently, greenwashing has become a ‘solution’ in some eyes, and a much greater risk to others. While encouraging brands to attain greener policies should not be negative, the lack of transparency in these efforts leaves much to be desired. This article's subject tackles that, but more specifically, tackles an issue we are all familiar with in a way not many are familiar with. Leather sourcing has been the topic of much controversy in the fashion industry for decades, as well as fur, it has become the epitome of arguments led by companies like Peta. However, most arguments over the use of leather and fur surround the animals themselves, and how human greed should not justify the murder of animals for material goods. While this is by no means a null argument, attacking this topic from another angle might be more useful, as the conversation has existed for so long, and with no new points being made, it's either going to stop or it isn't. However, Web writes about how leather sourcing is detrimental to the environment, from the carbon emissions present in all cow farms to the deforestation occurring at large on a global scale as a result. Brazil and Australia mentioned specifically, that leather farms are responsible for the degradation of our ecosystem and biodiversity globally. 

Recent developments in this case, however, have led many brands to take part in a worldwide boycott of, not leather farms, but the way we go about making them. While we do in fact have the resources to avoid using animal leather at all, snooty rich people would wear baby skin if it was sold by Louis Vuitton, so the best plan of attack is to fix it, rather than stop it. Understanding that the clock is ticking to fix our footprint, Canopy’s Nicole Rycroft, joined by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Accountability Framework Initiative (AFi), as well as Textile Exchange and the Paris Climate Agreement, have formulated plans to increase transparency in fashion brands sustainability plans as a way to decrease deforestation caused by leather farms. Their goal is to track sustainability efforts down the supply chain, leaving no stone unturned. Increasing transparency in this aspect, it will allow brands to take part in unsustainable practices to be found out and dealt with accordingly, eliminating the option to do anything but revamp their green plans. 

On a surface level, I initially thought this wouldn’t be enough. While deforestation and leather farms are more than enough to worry about, cattle farms seem more like a food industry problem than fashion, and we are better served worrying about water and air pollution, as we play a much larger role there. However, on a global scale, this policy could have benefits ranging far beyond leather sourcing and deforestation. Encouraging brands to think more sustainably in general and holding brands to those standards or they're at risk of losing many good connections, can shift the way we source things entirely. It eliminates the option to do it somewhere else, whereas other sustainability policies may be overlooked and simply sourced from somewhere less strict, Web writes that this would be enforced globally, and any brand agreeing to the terms would have no way around it. This changes global sourcing astronomically, and with the joint agreement with the Textile Exchange, these terms will most likely continue to spread beyond the efforts of this article.

Webb, Bella. “Brands Wake up to the Destructive Impact of Leather Production.” Vogue Business, Vogue, 14 June 2023, www.voguebusiness.com/sustainability/brands-wake-up-to-the-destructive-impact-of-leather-production-kering-tapestry-capri-textile-exchange. Accessed August 31. 2023.