ISA TanTec LCA results affirm sustainable manufacturing
Producer of leather and additional materials ISA TanTec recently announced the results of product-based Life Cycle Assessments (LCA’s), covering ten of the groups largest volume based leather productions.
ISA TanTec said it had initiated the LCA on its cattle hide leather production, at two of its largest Asian tanneries, to give customers accurate environmental impact data but to also identify environmental resource intensive hotspots in the supply and production chains.
Results of the assessments showed that leather production received lower impact scores across all environmental categories compared to the existing scores in the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) for cow leather, where ISA TanTec's Higg MSI score and global warming potential (GWP) score were lower by 75% and 73% respectively.
The group’s vice-president for sustainable business development, Keith Hill, said: “It is our intention to share our LCA and Higg MSI score results with our customers, suppliers, and stakeholders. We have initiated communications with our hide and chemical suppliers to get them directly involved and encourage them to do their own LCAs as appropriate. In this way we can improve the often-inconsistent methodology, data and information that is presented in many LCA’s. Only through a true cooperation between all parties will it be possible to create creditable and auditable LCAs in the future. We will continue our collaboration with the global leather industry to show the true environmental impact of leather under the given circumstances.”
