Vegan Leather
A Sustainable Alternative to Leather
Vegan Leather is a member of CrossRoads2: Sustainable Energy, which is financed by Interreg V Flanders-Netherlands, the cross-border cooperation programme with financial support from the European Regional Development Fund.
The Problem
In the case of leather, cultivating livestock is widely known to have a large environmental footprint. Excessive water and land usage, methane production from the livestock, and toxic chemicals used to tan the animal hides all contribute to pollution. There are also ethical concerns to consider, regarding the harm caused to the animals themselves, wasteful supply chains, and poor working conditions in many textile industries.
CO₂ impact of leather
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Toxic pollution
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Harm to animals
A deeper dive into the problem
To understand the environmental impact of leather production, BioScienz calculates the CO₂ produced through the entire lifecycle of a cow. Each square meter of leather would be the equivalent of an emission of 110 kg of CO₂. The environmental costs don’t just stop there: the processing of raw animal hides typically uses toxic chromium tanning agents, and repeated washing steps which flush large amounts of toxic wastewater into the surrounding environment, posing high risk to human and environmental health.
In addition to environmental issues, there is also the harm caused to the cattle livestock raised for leather production. This is understandably important to consumers who wish to use products which are cruelty-free. Their options are then to seek eco-friendly alternatives, but unfortunately, the currently available vegan leathers on the market are either produced using fossil-based plastics or are not yet suitable for mass-production. This can be due to limited available feedstocks, or using organic streams which compete for food or fuel production.
The Solution
At B4Plastics, we will design biobased cross-linking agents which will improve the durability of the final leather, using a solvent-free process with a very high atom-economy and virtually no waste.
BioscienZ is a biotech company from the south of the Netherlands. They will take organic waste streams from agriculture, and converts them into fungal biomass using rapid and techno-economically improved fermentation . Using waste makes this process highly sustainable.
Millvision, experts in natural fibres from North Brabant, will turn the fungal biomass into leather sheets. They use a pressing technique that will rely predominantly on water and overall low process temperatures, reducing the energy consumption of the overall production method.
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Industry
The Value Chain
Steps in the value chain
Raw material production
Manufacture
and use
Disposal
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1
Raw Material
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2
Monomer production
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3
Polymer production
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4
Plastic conversion
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5
Production of plastic products
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6
Use
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7
Collection/ sorting and recycling
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8
End of life
Vegan Leather is a member of CrossRoads2: Sustainable Energy, which is financed by Interreg V Flanders-Netherlands, the cross-border cooperation programme with financial support from the European Regional Development Fund. More info: www.grensregio.eu.
