As world leaders engage at COP27 in Egypt, Leather Working Group (LWG) urges the leather industry to back its efforts to drive traceability as a route to address the climate crisis.

Leather Working Group has published its Traceability Roadmap which sets out activities and milestones to drive toward achieving their priority traceability aim for all LWG leather to be deforestation-free by 2030, a critical goal to support the needed collective effort of the global community to end deforestation and advance more sustainable outcomes for people and planet.

As part of the LWG Traceability Roadmap, Leather Working Group has announced an additional target for verified product claims to be possible by 2025. To deliver on this LWG has begun work to develop the chain of custody for LWG leather. Engaging stakeholders from across the leather industry to collaborate to define the approach and system needs to connect all stages of the supply chain and support verification of sustainability claims for leather products.

Leather Working Group has been at the forefront of driving traceability in the leather industry since its inception in 2005 and through setting transparency ambitions this will define the pathway to understanding, measuring, and critically putting plans into action by LWG members to reduce carbon emissions and ensure that leather fulfills its potential as a sustainable material used in products that are made to last.

“While Leather Working Group is developing its traceability work which will benefit the entire industry, we cannot do it alone. There is an urgent need for the leather industry to support traceability projects, such as this, which will ultimately lead to a better-connected supply chain with data integrity at its heart. This will allow key stakeholders to make informed decisions that can help to reduce the climate impacts of the leather industry.” – Christina Trautmann, Head of Leather Working Group.

Leather Working Group is putting a call out to all leather industry stakeholders to get involved with their chain of custody project, further details available on the Leather Working Group website.