Nike imposes strict controls on Brazilian leather suppliers
24/07/2009
Sports footwear brand Nike has told its suppliers of leather in Brazil that they must join the Leather Working Group, a scheme under which large user organisations recognise good practice in large tanning groups, by the end of this year.
The company has also said its suppliers of leather in the South American country will have until July 1 next year to put in place a system of "full traceability of cattle products and a guarantee that those products are not causing deforestation in the Amazon Biome".
The announcement has come in the wake of a controversial report that non governmental organisation Greenpeace published last month, with claims that the leather industry was partly to blame for illegal deforestation of the rainforests in Amazon regions of Brazil. Politicians, representatives of the leather industry and individual packer and tanning groups, as well as livestock farmers in Brazilian states such as Pará and Mato Grosso do Sul, have called into question the accuracy and objectivity of the Greenpeace report.
Soon after the document appeared, large retail groups, including Wal-Mart, Pão de Acúcar and Carrefour, announced that they were suspending orders of beef slaughtered in the Amazon regions. The new announcement from Nike is, then, no more than the latest blow to the beef and leather industries in this part of Brazil.
Nike will require suppliers of Brazilian leather to certify, in writing, that they are supplying leather for Nike products from cattle raised outside of the Amazon Biome, defined as the Amazon rainforest and its related ecosystem. The company has said it will review suppliers' progress on this on a quarterly basis between now and the deadline.
The US-based brand went on to say that if, after July 1, 2010, suppliers are unable to provide "credible assurances" that leather for Nike products is from cattle raised outside of the Amazon Biome, Nike will consider increasing the exclusion area to include all of the so-called Amazon Legal, the whole of the nine Brazilian states that contain portions of the Amazon. If this controversial, punitive measure were to come into effect, it would cause serious harm to the businesses of livestock farmers who settled this part of the country in the 1970s and 1980s and who raise their herds on legally cleared land.
Fierce reaction in Brazil to Nike's announcement is certain to follow.
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