Sustainable animal-based leather alternatives for 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 gained attention as some of the innovative solutions to this problem. But they have also been criticized for frequently using PU coatings to make them more durable while hindering biodegradability.

At the 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 plant- and animal-based alternatives. From unusual leathers, to recycled leather and regeneratively farmed leathers, it seems there is still a place for animal skins in the fashion industry alongside the much hyped vegan leather.

“We are looking for solutions to a multitude of problems. There is no one size fits all,” says Nina Marenzi, CEO of The Sustainable Angle, organizer of the Future Fabrics Expo. “We need to diversify the fibers of the portfolio, because this is one of the biggest problems we have at the moment. It depends a lot on leather, conventional cotton and polyester. So having a bunch of choices and communicating what’s behind that choice, I think that’s where we can be helpful at this point in time,” she says.

Exploring different skin types is also smart for business. Danish fashion brand Ganni has banned virgin leather from its products since the start of the year after it discovered it had the highest footprint in its material mix. In February, she launched shoes using Pélinova made by Recyc, one of the exhibitors at the Future Fabrics Expo. Pélinova is a fusion of recycled leather waste from factory cutting room floors 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 leather.

However, Ganni is not only working with Recyc, but is also working with plant-based and bacterial skin alternatives. “We have a platform called Future Fabrics where we’re constantly testing new fabric innovations and working to make them part of our core product offering,” explains Lauren Bartley, Ganni’s chief sustainability officer. “It is very important that we cast the net wide when it comes to skin alternatives. We are very dependent on often small start-ups that need investment and commitment from brands in order to scale and commercialize, which means we can’t just bet on the success of an innovation.”

Last year, materials innovators Bolt Threads announced it would stop production of its mushroom leather alternative Mylo, despite support from big fashion names including Kering, Adidas and Stella McCartney.

When considering whether plant-based or low animal-impact 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 non-negotiable 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 hide may still retain that benefit.

Swiss luxury watch brand Oris has been using sustainably sourced deerskin for its watch straps since 2017. It sees its partnership with supplier Cervo Volante as a storytelling opportunity as well as a sustainability appeal.

Oris Co-CEO Rolf Studer says: “Our consumers seem to really appreciate the story behind these straps, and they also see the quality when they put on the watch. We get a lot of requests for more information as people want to dive deeper into the history 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 the Cervo Volante hit the market in 2016, hiding from this would go to waste. Today, the company reuses between 1,800 and 2,500 hides a year to make shoes and leather accessories using vegetable tanning processes.

Studer says: “The leather from Cervo Volante shows the signs of a life lived to the fullest in nature. There may be mosquito bites or scratches from fights. This is pure nature, these deer have lived a free life in the forests high in the Swiss mountains. And with the tanning done using all organic ingredients and based on very traditional methods, we also get a product that patina very nicely over time, it really becomes a very personal belt after a while.”

Oris doesn’t currently work with any plant-based leather alternatives, as it hasn’t been convinced by the quality or durability of the ones it’s seen, though it says it wouldn’t rule it out in the future.

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

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

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

Its unusual nature often arouses curiosity, Fourault says: “The first thing people do when we say this is fish is they smell it. When they see it doesn’t smell fishy, ​​it’s good.”

The average costs are 20 Euros per hide that averages 0.2 square meters.

ICTYOS produces smooth hides and some with a graduated pattern which makes it attractive to brands using exotic hides which often come from farms that grow just to use the hides. She also developed a way to join skins together in panels, without the need for stitching, 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 to balance cost, quality, and various environmental and social impact factors, which vary by material.

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

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

“Now, better than ever, there are so many different options. So I think to just say, ‘Oh, we’re going to keep going the way we’ve always done it,’ that’s totally unacceptable. I think we can all agree.”

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