Vegan leather: a 100% green alternative?
As you know, not everything in life is black or white. When it comes to the materials in your bags or clothes, the same applies.
Is a cowhide leather bag better than a vegan leather bag?
What does better mean? According to which criteria: durability, « recyclability » or impact during its production? And what is vegan leather?
Like everything in life, a material can be appropriate for a certain use and better for the environment in one context, and not in another.
So it’s not a question of banning one material to wear another on top, but it’s good to know what a material is, and what it involves, so that we can better understand why different leathers or textiles are used.
Here are a few things to help you understand the subject and we encourage you to learn more about brands’ ethical and environmental commitments to get a global view of their products.
How do you assess whether a product is eco-responsible?
Unfortunately, there is not one criterion but multiple criteria to evaluate the ecological impact of a material or a product.
We have retained 3 main ones to be examined in the screen of materials below:
-Manufacturing: how a product is made, from which materials, carbon impact of the materials composing it, carbon impact of the manufacturing itself, impact on wastewater…
-the durability of a product: will the finished material last over time or will it be thrown away after a few months? is it solid, is it durable, is it just a passing fad? can it be repaired?
-its recyclability: at the end of a product’s life, can it be recycled or will it be thrown away and pollute the environment?
What is « vegan » leather?
We have been hearing for a few years now about so-called eco-responsible materials that are able to aesthetically imitate THE material that has been used and exploited for thousands of years: leather. This is the case of so-called « vegan » leather.
What is behind this evocative and misleading name?
The expression « vegan leather » is indeed misleading, since it includes alternatives to leather that do not come from animal skins.
However, the term « leather » implies the use of animal skins: it is protected by a decree, Article 2 of which stipulates that « the use of the word leather, either as a main or root or as an adjective […] is prohibited in the designation of any material other than that obtained from animal skins […] ».
Vegan leather thus designates a leather-like material created from artificial products or plants.
1. Synthetic materials
What you know as « imitation leather » is nothing but vegan leather. The same goes for leatherette, lorica, clarino or amara.
These materials are plastic polymers such as polyurethane (PU) and Polyvinyl chlorite (PVC) which make it possible to reproduce a material similar to « classic » leather thanks to their wrinkled texture.
In concrete terms, PU and PVC are made from petroleum. Who says oil, says oil extraction and its ecological impact, what about the impact of transformation into imitation leather on water and CO² emissions?
2. Natural materials
The other part of the so-called « vegan » materials are leathers made from natural resources and in particular vegetable resources such as eucalyptus leather, cork, pineapple leather or mushroom leather
All these materials are identifiable thanks to Vegan labels such as « Certified Vegan » issued by Vegan Awarness, « One voice », « Leaping bunny » or « Cruelty free » granted by PETA.
A report developed in 2018 by Kering « L’Environmental Profit & Loss » states that the impact of vegan leather production can be up to a third less than that of real leather.
But if vegan leather has a lower impact than leather during its production, what about its impact over time?
Plastic garments can be a threat during and after their lifetime, as they could end up in water or in a landfill. It takes years for them to degrade, during which time they release toxic chemicals into the environment.
« It is estimated that 13 million tonnes of synthetic fibres enter our oceans every year, » warns Sandor, the designer of Nanushka, the fashionable Hungarian luxury brand created for the modern woman.
Pollution of microplastics is a major threat to our oceans.
What about leather and its ecological impact?
The issue of using leather or alternative products will become more and more present in the fashion industry.
One of the fundamental elements to be taken into account in understanding the subject is to understand the interdependencies between the agricultural and leather sectors.
To date, 99% of the remains processed into leather come from meat consumption: if these hides were not used, they would have to be incinerated at a very high financial and ecological cost.
In order to reduce the use of leather, meat consumption would have to be reduced, and although we are all aware of this need, given the carbon impact of the beef industry, reducing such an industry worldwide will not happen overnight.
It goes without saying that the intensive livestock farming practised by certain countries such as Brazil, at the expense of deforestation and the threat to the ecological balance, is a real scourge and cannot be justified by the resulting use of leather.
You will therefore have understood that the main question concerning the ecological impact of leather is really dependent on the method of farming in the first place, and on the types and conditions under which tanning is carried out.
Among the criteria mentioned above, we mentioned sustainability and the ability to be recycled :
The life span of leather products far exceeds that of the replacement products, a large part of which comes from the oil industry.
Finally, leather is recyclable, which is not the case for many products from the oil industry.
Tanning: an essential process but not without consequences
Tanning corresponds to the transformation of animal skins (in the case of « classic » leather) or natural resources (vegan leather) into rotproof materials that are as malleable as possible. It is an essential stage in the manufacture of leather. A distinction is made between mineral tanning and vegetable tanning.
In Europe, tanning is regulated by the REACH standard, which makes it possible to limit or prohibit the use of certain substances that are harmful to the environment or to human beings. It is therefore important to know the origin of the leather because more distant countries do not necessarily comply with these standards…
Mineral tanning consists of using mineral tannins such as chromium, iron or zirconium salts; it is the most common technique (90% of leather production) because it is fast (from a few hours to a few days) but also very resistant to traction, tears and high temperatures.
Vegetable tanning is the oldest method (since the Middle Ages yes yes)! The animal skin is immersed in vats with vegetable tannins such as the bark of trees (oak, chestnut, quebracho…), leaves or even roots. It is slower to process than chromium tanning even if the evolution of techniques today reduces its production to a few days.
Then comes a succession of stages including retanning, dyeing, spinning and then wind treatment.
Whether mineral or vegetable tanning, these two techniques require water resources but also chemical substances mixed together to obtain an optimal finish.
Mineral tanning uses nearly 85% chromium. Chromium, known for its toxicity and allergenic properties, is therefore increasingly controversial as it used to cause significant water pollution. This is now changing thanks to the laws that for the last ten years or so have been imposing in Europe a « clean » water treatment. Unfortunately 80% of the production of « animal » leather, which therefore uses mineral tanning, comes from developing countries (such as India) which do not adopt the same standards and discharge wastewater directly into rivers .
Vegetable tanning will be mixed with various oils to gain suppleness and shine.
In both cases, they require a lot of water to achieve the final result, which will be used as raw materials for the creation!
Recently, we have seen the appearance of mixed tanning, which relies on vegetable tanning, which is quickly and lightly retanned with chrome to guarantee an optimal lifespan!
| Tanning | Composition | Price | Production time | Lifetime | Usage |
| Mineral | Chromium, iron and zirconium salts | Affordable | A few hours | Strong | Animal leather |
| Vegetal | Vegetable Tree bark, leaves and roots | Expensive | A few days / month | Average | Animal and vegetal leather |
Does animal leather = mineral tanning? And no!
The materials used (hides or vegetable/plastic resources) are in no way associated with the subsequent treatment they undergo. So we can talk about animal leather and vegetable tanning in the same sentence without causing a misunderstanding! Is the reverse true? It could be. But a leather made from vegetable materials is not the same
| Leather | Composition | Lifetime | Style and use | Recycling |
| Animal | Leather skin | Strong | Infinity of colors / textures Rough touch Use : Accessories / shoes | yes with rubber and other leathers |
| “Vegan” / vegetal | Plastics (PVC or PU) / Plants (pineapple, mushroom, etc) | Low to average | Limited choice of colours, shapes. Soft and glossy Use : Pants / jackets | Not always |
Another material has made its appearance in recent years: « recycled » leather, a hybrid leather made by mixing existing leathers with natural rubber (latex) to create a paste that can be shaped as desired! Here is a material resulting from the circular economy in line with upcycling, i.e. creating with what already exists as we know how to do at E2R 🙂
Animal Leather versus Vegetable Leather: what do designers think?
Each use has its own favourite material!
While it is clear that the treatment of « animal » leather represents a scourge for the environment and health at the present time (mineral tanning being massively favoured); vegetable leather has also recently come up against criticism, particularly from designers who see it as a limited material, with a life cycle much shorter than animal leather and too little diversity of different textures, colours, etc…
To another extent, « vegan leather » is polluting, especially when it is made from plastic, i.e. PVC or PU, as Nanushka’s designer Sandra Sandor points out.
Like fur, leather is criticized for its « cruelty to animals » but also for its harmfulness and the pollution it causes. While the catwalks of fashion shows have been adopting or even favouring fake fur for a few years now, is this the case with vegan leather?
According to Sandra Sandor, who is used to working with these materials in her collections, « people often confuse it to the touch with real leather so it does not compromise the quality of our creations ».
However, other designers say that we can’t talk about perfect imitation. This is the case of Renee Cuoco, general manager of the Rejina Pyo label (a luxury sustainable women’s ready-to-wear brand) who maintains that despite the quality of vegan leather, especially for trousers (imitation leather) or jackets, some pieces are made only from animal leather « especially for shoes or bags, it offers a neat, comfortable and above all durable in time ».
How to find your way through all this and who can you trust?
In the end, in this subject far from being dichotomous, how to distinguish the true from the false, the good from the bad? As in any field, there are many names and abuses, especially when it comes to greenwashing!
Hallelujah! In this jungle of appellations there are labels capable of guaranteeing the quality of products according to several criteria: the right price (Fairtrade), the non-toxicity of products (Oeko-Tex) or the absence of animal matter (PETA or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal).
In the field of « responsible » leather, there is the international label « Naturleder » which guarantees the production of leather in a state of the art manner so as not to use any agents that are toxic to humans or the environment.
As you will have understood, in a society that changes and evolves with the times, it is easy to fall into the clichés of good and bad producers, responsible brands and irrational brands. It is important to take things into account and above all to be informed about the ins and outs of the products that YOU and only YOU buy!
It is everyone’s responsibility to act in his or her soul and conscience by limiting a little (or a lot) your imprint on the earth that you will leave to your children…
What to remember
– From a production point of view, vegan leathers, coming from the oil industry, seem to be less polluting than leather, mainly because of the ecological impact of tanning.
– The lifespan of « classic » leather is much longer than that of imitation leather.
– The ecological impact of plastic or micro-plastic fibres from the chemical industry concerns the pollution of the oceans.
– Leather and vegan leathers are part of large ecosystems that are not easy to apprehend and quantify, where everything is neither black nor white.
If you want to know more about the eco-responsible fabrics of the moment, it’s here.