Dr Kerry Senior, director at Leather UK, writes on LinkedIn that the Mexican “cactus-synthetic” material Deserto, that imitates leather and has a tie-up with BMW Motors could be subject to the new UK and EU green claims regulations.

The manufacturers claim that that “Our vegan cactus materials Desserto® (fashion) and Deserttex (automotive) offer very important environmental and ethical contributions to both industries by reducing Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) by almost 900%, Carbon Greenhouse Gas emissions by almost 2. 000% and water use by up to 150,000% compared to traditional animal leather, while at the same time being totally transparent,” https://lnkd.in/dwdqhEWT 

Dr Senior asks “How can you reduce anything by more than 100%? Even if manufacturing Desserto generates energy, creates water and is a huge carbon sink, these figures are just nonsense. As to transparency, the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) on their website simply repeats these numbers with no explanation of the basis, assumptions or allocations”.

“Unfortunately, these numbers will be taken at face value by many. This is why these new regulations are so important to ensure that consumers are given the facts on sustainability and not dazzled by meaningless numbers”.