6 July 2025
From advancing transparency in the leather supply chain to publishing our Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), join Leather Working Group’s Executive Director Vanessa Podmore as she highlights some of the organisation’s big achievements for 2024 and sets out a vision for the future.
“The businesses we work with are under pressure with new science-based reporting, so we need to be able to support them with that,” says Podmore.
“Additionally, there is growing demand from consumers to understand what they are buying as well as regulation and new guidance to ensure that claims around sustainability and impact are clear.
“Among these landscape changes, we need to ensure we define our place. While brands must address new practice across their diverse range of materials, we specialise in leather. So, for Leather Working Group, that means being clear about that scope, from supply chain transparency to carbon footprint calculations.”
Throughout the year, Leather Working Group has operated in more than 60 countries, partnered with over 600 brands, and engaged with in excess of 2,000 LWG-certified suppliers – take a look at some more big achievements from 2024 below.
1. A new sustainability system
Leather Working Group presented the next evolution of the Audit Standard to its stakeholders, including the creation of expert technical advisory teams and the process of wider public consultation and feedback. This includes project focus on deforestation due diligence, measuring carbon footprint and Chain of Custody. Missed the presentation? Log into the user area on the website and find the follow-up webinar recording in Past Events.
2. A Life Cycle Assessment
Leather Working Group's Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) report was published, providing a detailed assessment of leather production that analyses 50 products across six categories, including chrome- and glutaraldehyde-tanned leathers for footwear, furniture, leather goods, and automotive upholstery. A summary of the findings can be downloaded here and the full LWG LCA report is available to Leather Working Group stakeholders via their user portal. Log in here.
3. A new leather dataset for Higg MSI
Leather Working Group teamed up with Leather Naturally to announce that the combined dataset from their LCA studies was adopted as the new bovine leather average in the Higg MSI, cutting leather’s GWP score by 60 percent. Learn more here.
4. A sustained level of collaboration
Leather Working Group collaborated across the industry in several initiatives with a purpose to enable alignment, reduce duplication, optimise resources and share expertise. Collaboration partners included World Wildlife Fund, Textile Exchange, European Traceability Cluster, National Wildlife Federation, AFi Conservation International, Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, Consumer Goods Forum, ZDHC, UNIDO, and Leather Naturally. Collaboration is at the heart of our work – more here.
5. A series of stakeholder sessions
Leather Working Group hosted eight stakeholder meetings or webinars featuring 12 expert guest speakers, attracting more than 1,000 attendees in 2024. The Life Cycle Assessment and upcoming Audit Standard update were key topics of discussion – be sure to rewatch the webinars by clicking on the dedicated user area of Leather Working Group's website.