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Let’s hear it for Greenpeace20 June 2009 |  3 comments |  Print This Page
Everybody loves Greenpeace, one of the most famous NGOs in the world. The daring and headline-grabbing tactics it often uses to put across its message of fair play for the earth and all its resources usually only add to its appeal.
At the start of this month the organisation turned the glare of its publicity machine on the leather industry in Brazil, insisting that the sector is partly to blame for illegal deforestation of the Amazon rain forests. That may seem impossibly remote from your business, but you should know that Greenpeace has managed to link this phenomenon to tanneries and end-users of leather the whole world over. No one escapes Greenpeace’s wrath.
Some operators in the livestock sector have cleared parts of the rain forest to make extra land available for cattle grazing. The cattle supply the global meat market, which is the livestock farmers’ target market from the outset. We knew this already: we ran a story on leatherbiz last year giving details of the action that Brazil’s environment minister, Carlos Minc, had threatened to take against any livestock farmer or packer firm violating Brazil’s own laws against this, which include confiscating cattle, slaughtering them and using the meat in programmes to feed the poor. What’s not to like, unless you’re Paul McCartney?
Leather features in the report because Greenpeace surmises that hides from illegally reared cattle go into the leather supply chain, as so many hides do. The supposition that the value chain must contain these rain forest-threatening hides leads Greenpeace, by several leaps of questionable logic (some poppies are used to produce heroin; it doesn’t mean everyone with poppies in their garden is part of an international narcotics ring), to conclude that everyone in the world involved in making or using Brazilian raw material and leather is complicit in the destruction of the rain forests.
Ikea and Natuzzi from the world of furniture upholstery feature in the “under cover” Greenpeace report, soberly entitled ‘Slaughtering the Amazon’; so do Gucci and Prada from the upper echelons of high fashion; Nike, adidas and Clarks are there representing footwear, and automotive brands BMW, Ford, Honda and Toyota are on the list too. The report names and aims to shame all of them.
As usual, no spokesperson from the global leather sector has stepped up to point out the unfairness of this. We heard at the International Leather Forum in Paris in 2007 that the industry’s usual response in the face of attacks of this kind is to sit tight until it all blows over. This is linked to the belief that the qualities of leather—its beauty, naturalness, breathability, durability and sensuality—can sell themselves. But this is no longer true, if it ever was. There is fierce competition to attract buyers to alternative textiles in every application market, with manufacturers (some of them very powerful) presenting polyester and other petroleum-based products as alternative to leather.
On this occasion, Brazilian packer and tanning group Bertin takes a special hammering. Bertin, Greenpeace assures us, is the link between the running shoes in your closet or the armchair you are sitting on and the destruction of the Amazon rain forests. Bertin exports raw hides, wet blue hides and finished leather to all parts of the manufacturing world. It uses as raw material in its leather operation the hides of cattle slaughtered in Amazonia, from which Greenpeace deduces that the cattle have, necessarily, been raised on illegally cleared land. Another leap of logic.
Initially, Bertin responded to the Greenpeace very well, in my opinion. It politely pointed out that 80% of the hides in its tanneries come from its own slaughterhouses, all of which meet government requirements. The other 20% comes from a carefully controlled supplier list. Bertin said it was confident none of its suppliers were in breach of the law regarding land-clearance, but agreed to carry out an additional audit in the wake of the Greenpeace accusations and cease to work immediately with any company it found to be involved in illegal deforestation.
Greenpeace ought to have been pleased with this response because it contrasts starkly with the reaction of figures such as the vice-president of the Association of Livestock Producers in the neighbouring state of Mato Grosso, José João Bernardes. His response was: “This report doesn’t have the slightest basis in truth. It’s just wrong. There’s already plenty of clear land here to graze cattle without cutting down anything.”
Back in Pará, however, Greenpeace pressure has begun to tell. The state authorities have asked big retail groups, including Wal-Mart, Carrefour and Pão de Açúcar to stop buying meat from packer firms that may be involved in the scandal. As a result, cattle prices there fell by 7% in a week. Around the same time, the International Finance Corporation (IFC)—the division of the World Bank that promotes sustainable private sector investment in developing countries—has cancelled a loan agreement with Bertin (although Bertin insisted this was the result of a discussion that began in January and had nothing to do with Greenpeace).
The NGO may well regard this a good return on the work it has put into the new report, but from the pages that I have seen, I have to wonder if it has thought this issue through thoroughly. Taking its position to a logical extreme, it does not seem to have asked itself any questions regarding the possible impact on the environment of the material world suddenly ceasing to use leather altogether, demanding increased production of polyester and plastic to take its place.
Looking on the bright side, as I always try to do, at least one good thing came out of ‘Slaughtering the Amazon’. It’s not always easy for small teams like ours to put definitive figures on the size and scope of the global leather industry. Fortunately, Greenpeace has revenues of €212.3 million a year and researchers in 40 countries, so it was able to pepper the report with helpful statistics, including the fact that there has been “dramatic growth” in trade in leather since the late 1980s.
Since World Leather was first published, the sector has grown by 400%. By 2006, it was worth $23.7 billion a year, giving leather more or less the same value as trade in red meat, which is interesting considering how much of an afterthought leather often is for the meat trade. It also means that trade in leather is worth twice as much as sugar, one of the most widely-traded commodities in the world. Leather is important. Thanks, Greenpeace, for confirming that.
Stephen Tierney
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Comments
- S Tierney wrote:
16 July 2009 13:06
Following a comment from a reader, Roger, at the end of the October entry, I thought I'd mention that people are 100% welcome to use the comments section on the leatherbiz blog as a discussion forum. Stephen.
- S Tierney wrote:
24 July 2009 01:34
Just to give an update, Nike’s reaction to all this became public on July 22. There is still practically no one speaking up for leather.
Some of the early reaction from Brazil is really funny, but not material I'd feel comfortable publishing on leatherbiz. Updates, including official reaction from the leather industry there, will appear in the news section and, before the end of the year, in World Leather. These are tough times for Brazilian leather.
- Ajoy Sorcar wrote:
17 October 2009 18:03
The Tropical hides from amazon are also used in environmentally friendly automobiles such as Honda in most of the models where car seats are made of leather. It happens to be that the hides are all coming from Bertin the maeat packing house in Brazil and further processed and finished by an American Automotive componets manufacturer name Eagle Ottawa who boasts being the largest leather producer in the world and re head quartered in Auburn Hills Michigan right in the heart of the automotive capital of the world
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