New statistics show the carbon footprint of wasted hides is much higher than previously thought, according to the Leather and Hide Council of America (LHCA).

There was a global total of just over 1.5 billion head of cattle in 2022, according to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. From this herd, LHCA senior vice-president Kevin Latner thinks 334 million hides could, in theory, be available to tanners every year.

However, with brands choosing synthetic materials over leather for footwear and bags, millions of hides go to waste every year.

LHCA suggests that 30% of cattle hides in India are going into landfill and that the figure for Ethiopia could be markedly higher. The percentage of hides going to waste in the US is now around 15%, up from 7% in 2023, he said.

Using figures, including those from non-profit ReFED, LCHA has worked out that depositing one tonne of hides in landfill would generate just over 13 tonnes of CO2-equivalent.

Mr Latner told sister publication World Leather: “If the weight of one hide is, on average, 25 kilos, the carbon footprint of each one that goes to waste will be more than 300 kilos of CO2-equivalent. If ten go to waste, that’s 3 tonnes of emissions. But we don’t have just 10 hides going to waste, we have 134 million of them. Choosing not to turn those hides into leather generates emissions of more than 40 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent every year.”

The inference is that tanners not only turn a waste product from the food industry into a new material, creating a circular industry, but also help to stop the CO2-equivalent generated in landfills.

The association has been working on a new lifecycle analysis (LCA) for nearly three years and is, according to Mr Latner, “very close to having a finished product now”.