Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Sustainably sourced deer leather used by watch brand Oris Marc Fischer 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 v.