Examples of corporate social responsibility in the leather industry

Myth: Tanners make leather without any consideration for the environment, for the safety and well-being of their workers or for the communities with which they share resources.
Fact: The Tannery of the Year programme has reported since 2009 countless examples of leather producers that care deeply about all aspects of corporate social responsibility.

In spite of frequent reports on film, in print and especially online of damage caused to the environment and to people’s wellbeing by tanneries, there is a rich reservoir of factual evidence of good practice across the industry. The Tannery of the Year Awards programme has yielded more than 50 eye-witness accounts of excellence in corporate social responsibility (CSR). This article picks out some of the examples to have come to light in the course of the competition.

There may or may not have existed a time when tanners hardly had to try to convince their customers or, by extension, end consumers about the qualities of leather, the appeal of the material: its beauty, its versatility, its sensuality, its durability, its ability to grow even more beautiful with age, its renewability and sustainability used to be common knowledge. What is clear, though, is that in the twenty-first century no one is entitled to assume that the public or sourcing professionals in finished product companies still know about these qualities, or care. No one is going to make leather’s arguments or fight leather’s battles for…