Is it leather? Writes on LinkedIn: Guilty until proven innocent. That’s what happens when your industry is on the back end of a highly financed smear campaign. One that’s designed to demolish your standing in the world to elevate their own profits through the tall tales of their inferior product that damages the world on every level.

Big oil versus the Leather Industry. They have painted our industry as cruel, unsustainable, and ecologically unfit. They have turned activists and celebrities against us and have shown retailers an easy path forward to increased profits and virtue signaling. They have deceived consumers and lobbied governments into arduous and ridiculous regulations that have our best and brightest working around the clock – to prove innocence.

So, the question is, when will the plastics industry face the same scrutiny?

Here is a perfect example: The leather industry is racing full throttle in Brazil to provide full traceability and comply with the impending EU Deforestation Regulations in order to continue to do business in the region. It’s certainly a serious issue, and kudos to the EU for its diligence. But is the regulation complete?

Where, exactly, is the traceability regulation for fake leather products (plastic)? Why are we not concerned about finding the birth farm of a fake cow that provides fake leather? It’s because plastic’s “birth farm” is on an oil rig somewhere – protected by big industry and big money.

But if the EU is concerned that products like leather coming into their region are damaging the environment, shouldn’t they also care about the impact of the material that they are intrinsically pushing people toward? Where are the traceability regulations on fake leather? Where is the outrage and calls for reform in the plastic production process, its labor conditions, and its environmental impact at every stage of its life cycle?

It seems plastic is being held to a much different standard – or better yet, no standard at all. It’s time that we all start calling for transparency and regulation on an equal basis between real leather and plastic. We can’t let the Big Oil-financed obstacles and roadblocks keep us so busy we don’t fight for fairness and transparency across all industries.