Leather Naturally

Leather Naturally is the initiative that promotes the global use of sustainable leather and seeks to inspire and inform designers, creators, and consumers about its beauty, quality, and versatility. In 2021, various new educational factsheets have been prepared in multiple languages, there was strong growth in audience on social media, and we participated in several educational talks. The global promotional campaign METCHA that is run by Leather Naturally was successful in reaching its KPIs: a total audience of 4.3 million people, making leather, in word and image, seen 1.2 billion times across the most relevant social media. It is up to the industry to step up and co-fund this successful campaign for the future. Royal Smit & Zoon supports this initiative through membership, financial donations to the METCHA campaign, and providing time for our Global Director ESG to chair the association. In 2022, we will continue our efforts to educate the public about the beauty and sustainability of leather. We kindly invite all our partners to join Leather Naturally in membership.

Leather Impact Accelerator

Smit & Zoon signed the Charter of the Leather Impact Accelerator in 2018 already. The Leather Impact Accelerator (LIA) uses benchmarks to address animal welfare and deforestation, the social and environmental impacts of leather processing, and traceability. Brands can use LIA to support best practices in the leather value chain and make credible claims about their actions. We supported this initiative by sharing our know-how and network through participating in various conference calls. In 2022, we intend to further collaborate in shaping the RLA tool.

Leather Working Group

Royal Smit & Zoon is an active member of the Leather Working Group (LWG). In 2021, the LWG launched P7 and showed enormous growth in the number of leather manufacturers that have been audited. The new plans for expanding the scope of the protocol are promising, with an increased focus on traceability, a chain of custody, environmental footprint, and social conformity. The LWG Tannery of the Future – Are You Ready for an Audit launched an online version and is further supporting leather manufacturers to develop their products in environmental and social matters and prepare for an actual LWG audit. Royal Smit & Zoon was one of the founding partners and is currently co-chairing this working group.

Sustainable Leather Foundation (SLF)

Royal Smit & Zoon was one of the founding partners of SLF. At the heart of it is the integrated SLF Transparency Dashboard™, which is linked to a certification standard that assesses the compliance and performance of leather manufacturers and associated facilities within the leather value chain. In 2021, this initiative was launched for the leather industry and Royal Smit & Zoon will continue to support this organization to provide value to society.

Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC)

Royal Smit & Zoon has been an active contributor to ZDHC since early 2018. In 2021, we added our key product range from Codyeco to the ZHDC Conformance level 3 portfolio and are preparing our production entities in India to follow in 2022, delayed due to COVID-19 restrictions. We will continue to support ZDHC in developing their program by supporting task teams and the Sustainable Chemistry Lead team.