| Résumé : |
Leather is a non-determining co-product of the meat industry and, therefore, a change in its demand will not change the amount of meat produced. As leather is a by-product, many argue that the hides/skins should not carry any environmental burden from the agriculture stage. This concept is known as "zero allocation".
UNI EN ISO 14040 reads: 'Allocation is the partitioning of the input or output flows of a process or a product system between the product system under study and one or more other product systems". This means that the footprint from the inputs is rationed into products and co-products further downstream.
Slaughterhouses believe the carbon emissions caused during a cow's lifetime should be portioned among meat, milk (dairy) and all the by-products. This partitioning results in leather obtaining a footprint (including carbon) from the upstream processes.
Alternatively, zero allocation for the phases proceeding to the tannery stage would mean only the main products the animal was reared for (i.e. meat and milk) would carry the footprint derived from agriculture. Usually, products allocated zero tend to be waste materials. Waste can receive allocated footprint, in certain situations, see Wilfart et al. (2021).
The Confederation of National Associations of Tanners and Dressers of the European Community (Cotance) has renewed calls for a zero allocation for leather, claiming that, unlike meat and milk, by-products such as hides/skins may not always be further processed, thereby becoming waste. If hides/skins are disposed of in landfill, their decomposition will emit significant amounts of carbon emissions (equating to approximately five million tonnes).
Therefore, tanners state that; by turning these by-products into leather, these emissions are avoided. However, the European Commission has rejected the concept of zero allocation provisionally, declaring that any product with an economic value cannot be considered a waste. |
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Waste and allocation for leather in INTERNATIONAL LEATHER MAKER (ILM), N° 52 (03-04/2022)
