Traceability has become one of the leather industry’s defining challenges \u2014 and, until recently, one of its most fragmented. A new European standard is attempting to change that by giving the sector a shared vocabulary. Standard EN 18199, “Essential Requirements for Leather Traceability,” was the focus of a dedicated Lineapelle event on February 12, 2026, and it marks a significant step toward alignment across certification bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Developed by industry certification bodies under the governance of COTANCE, EN 18199 is designed for the benefit of all leather industry stakeholders. Its purpose is to define the essential requirements for tracing leather through the supply chain, creating a baseline that different schemes can reference. The Lineapelle session explored both the need for such a standard and its specific requirements, while also showing how certification bodies have aligned their own protocols to support better equivalency and mutual recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The event’s programme reflected that collaborative spirit. COTANCE \u2014 represented by Secretary General Gustavo Gonzalez-Quijano \u2014 introduced the traceability issue and described the EN 18199 requirements. ICEC, the Quality Certification Institute for the Leather Sector, presented its own standard and alignment initiatives through Director Sabrina Frontini. The Sustainable Leather Foundation (SLF), represented by Managing Director Deborah Taylor, outlined its corresponding approach. A panel moderated by COTANCE then brought in the practitioner view, with companies representing tanneries and traders of bovine, goat, sheep, and exotic leathers \u2014 including Rino Mastrotto Group, Lamipel, and Riff Leather \u2014 sharing how traceability plays out on the factory floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Why does a common standard matter so much? Because without one, brands and suppliers face a confusing patchwork of overlapping schemes, each with its own definitions, audit logic, and data formats. That duplication drives up cost and fatigue without necessarily improving outcomes. EN 18199’s value lies less in inventing new requirements than in establishing interoperability: when schemes align to a shared baseline, a tannery’s evidence can satisfy more customers with less redundancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mutual recognition is the prize. If certifiers converge on EN 18199, a single audited traceability system becomes more portable across the supply chain, reducing the administrative tax that currently falls on producers \u2014 particularly smaller ones. For the leather sector, which has historically struggled to speak with one voice on sustainability, the standard is also a credibility asset in conversations with regulators and NGOs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Lineapelle event signalled that the building blocks for harmonised traceability are now in place. The harder work \u2014 widespread adoption and genuine equivalence between schemes \u2014 will determine whether EN 18199 becomes the backbone of leather traceability or simply one more reference point. For an industry under growing pressure to prove provenance, the direction of travel is encouraging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source: Lineapelle (lineapelle-fair.it), January 29, 2026.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New CEN standard EN 18199 sets a common language for leather traceability across the supply chain, easing due diligence and compliance for tanners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_georankopt_ai_score":56,"_georankopt_ai_analysis":null,"_georankopt_ai_recommendations":null,"_georankopt_focus_keyword":"","_georankopt_ai_last_analysis":"2026-08-26 12:07:30","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1418,1420,1419,1421,198,675],"class_list":["post-2307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news","tag-cen-standard","tag-due-diligence","tag-en-18199","tag-leather-compliance","tag-leather-traceability","tag-supply-chain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.galan.ltd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}