Green-washed disinformation can be a highly effective marketing tool – like the leather lobby’s assertion: “You’re actually helping the environment by using a leather product”. Many believe it to be true and this in turn serves to strengthen sales and cement markets.
The leather industry has spent years carefully crafting a narrative that animal skin is a sustainable alternative to fossil fuel-based materials (which we indeed must phase out). Yet at the same time, it has looked to Big Oil’s campaign of climate denialism not in horror, but for inspiration.
In October last year, the European Commission proposed a year-long delay for its anti-deforestation regulation, which would prevent deforestation-linked commodities – including leather – from sale in the region. The news was celebrated by global leather lobbying groups.
