London event celebrates successful Bangladesh leather traceability project
An event took place in London on June 30 to mark the successful conclusion of a project called Leathertrace Bangladesh.
Taking two years to complete, Leathertrace Bangladesh involved 11 leather manufacturers in Bangladesh, three finished leather product manufacturers and more than 150 suppliers of hides and skins.
Working with academics from UK universities, non-profit organisation the Sustainable Leather Foundation, and technology and project management partners in Bangladesh, the project leaders successfully traced almost 200,000 cattle hides and 3 million square-feet of finished leather. This included material that went into shoes and leathergoods for customers in Europe and North America.
Leathertrace also had the support of the United Nations Trade and Development body and of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
At the event, which leathergoods brand Mulberry hosted, the founder of the Sustainable Leather Foundation, Deborah Taylor, said: “Traceability is where we have to start from and Leathertrace has found a system that will work and will also scale up. The government in Bangladesh is working on a plan for the leather industry there. We want the work that has come out of this project to be part of that plan.”
