A new edition of the Leatherbiz Market Intelligence newsletter went live on November 23 and is now available.

Our Leather Pipeline report this time reflects on unfair negative publicity that the meat and leather sectors received at the recent COP26 conference.

It singles out for criticism fashion designer Stella McCartney, who used an event on the fringes of the COP26 to renew her criticism of leather. She set up an exhibition at an art gallery in host city, Glasgow, to exhibit alternative materials that she is using in some of her products. Forbes reported that Ms McCartney had used the exhibition to launch a petition “to demand governments ban the use of leather”.

The Market Intelligence report welcomes an open letter to Ms McCartney that leather industry body COTANCE published at the end of the conference. Signed by new COTANCE president, Manuel Ríos, the open letter invited the fashion designer to enter dialogue with the leather industry to gain a better understanding of the material’s place in the circular economy.

It went on to ask her to “stop slandering a humble but legitimate industry that renders a clean-up service to society, produces durable beauty from a residue and strives for social and environmental excellence”.

Market Intelligence has said it would be a pity if this open letter fails to gain the attention of mainstream media “in the same way as the original fact-poor statement from Ms McCartney at COP26” has.