No animal is killed for your car seat. There we have it. It’s a bold statement, but it’s also a fact about automotive leather that most people aren’t aware of. Report by One 4 Leather.

If you find yourself confused by this statement, bear with us: we are well aware that leather comes from larger animals.

However, animals aren’t raised in order to give us leather: they’re raised for their meat, milk or wool.

So did you know that:

• hides are a leftover from the food industry;
• hides can also be transformed into new products or specific ingredients like collagen, protein and gelatin;
• 20% of the value of an animal comes from secondary industries other than the meat industry (of which the skin is a large part!);
• a hide would go to waste without proper treatment that preserves it (which is called ‘tanning’).

This means that hides are upcycled to create a sustainable material for automotive interiors (and other applications). So yes, we can honestly say that no animals are bred for their hides and that we believe, as an industry, that we are adding real value by turning a leftover into a durable product. All because if we wouldn’t up-cycle the hides, they would end up creating a very big pile of waste.

So why not turn each hide into a 100% beautiful piece of leather then, right?

Find out more about our core statements