European leather sector sees workers’ safety gains, carbon footprint reduction

Accidents in Europe’s leather sector have decreased in recent years, while new methodologies to assess its lifecycle carbon footprint are helping the industry in its green transition.

The European leather industry is relatively small compared with other sectors, but it’s a big player in the cities and regions where it’s present, employing some 34,000 workers across the continent.

The sector is trying to improve leather workers’ employment conditions and boost public perception of tanners, which has not always been so favourable.

“Far too often the general public is confronted with shocking images and major news of workplace accidents or environmental pollution, casting an appalling shadow over the leather industry,” said Manuel Ríos, president of Cotance, the Brussels-based trade association for the leather industry, Ríos was speaking at a conference co-organised with trade union IndustriAll Europe in May.

“The leather industry will only have a future in Europe if it takes care of the people and the planet, and it starts with its workforce and with the protection of the environment at home,” he added.

While workplace injuries and incidents are still present in the sector, the number of incidents affecting European leather workers has reduced by 16% between 2019 and 2021, a report by the Green Deal Leather project found, the report was organised by Cotance and IndustriAl.

“If you look at what kind of risks or what kind of incidents have happened, for the people involved, they’re not minor,” Judith Kirton-Darling, general secretary at IndustriAll, told Euractiv. “But we’re not talking about fatalities, we’re mainly talking about minor injuries in the workplace.”

Most of these injuries in 2021 were due to wounds (54%), followed by dislocations, sprains (19%) and bruises (14%).

The sector acknowledged that trade unions have been instrumental in improving the safety conditions of workers.

“We have the responsibility to use all the tools available to ensure workplace safety, from collective bargaining to awareness campaigns, training, and to adapt to all developments around chemicals or machinery,” Javier Usón, responsible for textiles and clothing at the Spanish trade union UGT-FICA, told the conference.

“We must also have daily vigilance towards companies and establish dialogues so that these accidents are reported: it’s bad enough that a person gets hurt, but it’s even worse if such an incident is not known by the employer,” he added.

Panellists at the Green Deal Leather conference underlined the importance of providing training to employees and all stakeholders, protecting workers and subcontractors, and prioritising certification, social dialogue and having strong safety standards.

“European standards [in machinery used for leather production] must guarantee safety, quality, and the consistency of our production, and at the same time reduce incidents,” said Agostino Apolito, Director General of the Italian clothing and footwear trade association Assomac.

The industry has also strived to implement stringent occupational safety and health (OSH) standards. One of the most important steps is to improve such a framework for OSH regulation at a global level, said Beatriz Mello da Cunha, Sectoral and Programming Specialist for textiles, clothing, leather and footwear at the International Labour Organisation.

“That means investing in national OSH policies, and in equipping the labour inspectors and training them,” she said, adding: “The second [key action] is supporting companies in developing OSH policies and programs together with workers […] to be able to identify risks and develop measures to address them.”

Overall, the ILO assesses that investing in occupational health and safety has increased globally: “It’s a change of mind, a change of understanding towards the importance of occupational safety,” Mello da Cunha added.

Carbon footprint

The European leather industry is actively seeking to reduce its carbon footprint, too. According to a recent study by Cotance, tannery processes have an average carbon footprint of 8kg of CO2 per m2 of bovine leather.

However, depending on the methodology used to calculate carbon footprints or the characteristics that are being assessed – such as the thickness of the material – the figures can vary substantially.

The sector has long been advocating for harmonisation of methodologies to calculate carbon footprints, known as life-cycle assessments or LCAs.

“We need to either introduce or start to map and prepare proposal recommendations for harmonization of methodologies,” said Ivan Kral, Industrial Development Officer at the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), at the Cotance event.

“Consumers are concerned about the environment, that’s why it’s very important to be open, to be transparent, and to have a good methodology to be able to show what is real and to be able to improve performance,” he added.

The leather industry is also looking into ways to improve its circularity, using methods to ensure the recovery and recycling of hides and skins, which would reduce the carbon footprint of products.

In turn, around 60% of the greenhouse gas emissions embedded in leather production come from the chemicals used.

“Therefore, the transformation and innovation for green chemicals has an implication on this sector, to reduce Scope 3 emissions,” said IndustriAll’s Kirton-Darling.

“So, we have to see our industrial fabric in Europe in this joined up way, so that we can ensure that we’re really decarbonising and promoting the transformation of industry in a sustainable way and that we do not end up de-industrialising Europe,” Kirton-Darling told the conference.

[By Anna Gumbau I Edited by Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab ]

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