Leather Steps Onto the Global Climate Stage: 13 Industry Bodies Urge COP31 to Recognise a Circular, Bio-Based Material

When the world’s environment ministers gather in Antalya, Turkiye, this November for COP31, the leather industry intends to be heard. Thirteen of the sector’s most influential organisations — from tanners and traders to technologists and sustainability advocates — have signed a joint manifesto calling on the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference to formally recognise leather as a circular, bio-based material rather than treating it as just another extractive commodity.

The document, titled A Manifesto for Leather on the occasion of COP31: Leather – the circular choice, reframes a familiar argument in language climate negotiators are increasingly using. Its central claim is straightforward: leather is not produced by raising animals for their skins. It is overwhelmingly made from hides and skins that are by-products of meat production — material that would otherwise be discarded. Used well, the manifesto argues, leather becomes a model of resource efficiency rather than waste.

The signatory list reads like a roll call of global leather leadership. It includes the International Council of Tanners (ICT), the European tanners’ federation COTANCE, Leather Naturally, the Global Leather Alliance, the Sustainable Leather Foundation, Leather UK, and bodies representing Brazil, Australia, Germany and the international leather-chemicals and technologists’ community, among others. Thirteen organisations in total, spanning continents and every link in the value chain, signed a single position.

What they want from COP31 is both symbolic and practical. Symbolically, they are asking policymakers to stop lumping leather in with petrochemical-based synthetics when sustainability rules are written. Practically, they want leather to be explicitly considered under the European Union’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and its Bioeconomy Strategy — frameworks that reward durability, repairability and renewable natural inputs.

The manifesto leans heavily on established third-party science. It cites the United Nations Industrial Development Organization’s (UNIDO) guidelines on assessing leather’s environmental footprint and points to research showing leather has a high bio-based content and is biodegradable. The logic is that a product which lasts for years, can be repaired, and eventually returns to the natural cycle is precisely the kind of material a circular economy should favour.

There is an emotional as well as a technical case. The authors argue that “slow fashion” — buying fewer, better things that endure — is the antidote to disposable consumer culture, and that leather goods, properly made, embody that ethos. In a world scrambling to reduce reliance on fossil-fuel-derived materials, the manifesto positions leather as a renewable alternative hiding in plain sight. The signatories are not asking governments to mandate leather; they are asking them to stop penalising it by omission.

The timing is no accident. As Brussels advances its sustainable-products rulebook, leather’s classification carries real commercial stakes. If bio-based, durable and repairable materials receive regulatory preference, leather could gain against synthetic alternatives in everything from automotive seating to fashion. If it is instead tarred as environmentally problematic by association with livestock emissions, tanners face higher compliance costs and lost market access. In that sense the manifesto is as much a defensive trade manoeuvre as a positive pitch. By arriving at COP31 with a united, science-backed voice, the signatories hope to pre-empt poorly designed policy rather than spend the next decade contesting it in committees and courts.

For an industry that has spent years on the defensive against synthetic competitors and fragmented regulation, the COP31 push is a calculated attempt to seize the narrative. Rather than reacting to criticism, the sector is pre-emptively placing itself inside the conversation about what a sustainable material future looks like. Whether negotiators in Antalya take the bait remains to be seen, but the coordinated, cross-border nature of the appeal signals a maturing industry that understands the climate debate will not wait. Leather’s defenders are no longer whispering in trade journals; they are knocking on the door of the world’s most important environmental forum.

Source: Leather News (leathernews.org), October 17, 2026.