Exports of Leather and Leather Goods:: Performance, Prospects, and Policy Priorities (original) (raw)
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Indian Leather industry is recognized as one of the most promising foreign exchange earning sectors since early ’70s of the previous century. The industry was hard hit by two consecutive foreign environment-bans since 1989. Along with that, few domestic environmental regulations also resulted into closure down of a number of leather tanneries in this period. However, the government intervention and the successive compliance measures adopted by the firms ultimately helped the industry to gain momentum in its export sector. This paper analyses the far reaching impact of these environmental regulations on export sector of Indian Leather Industry. Whether this boost in leather export marks a trade off relation between environmental quality and volume of exports is a matter of debate, attempted to be resolved here. This paper, within the limitations of data availability regarding environmental statistics, has determined a positive relation between environmental quality and volume of leather exports and justified that instead of Pollution Haven Hypothesis, Indian Leather Industry rather confirms Porter’s Hypothesis.
Measuring the Environmental Footprint of Leather Processing Technologies
The selection of materials and manufacturing processes often determines most of the environmental impact that a product will have during its life cycle. In directing consumption toward products with the least impact on the environment, measuring and comparing material alternatives with site-specific data is a fundamental prerequisite. Within the apparel and footwear industry, some famous brands have recently been basing their advertising on the claim that vegetable-tanned leather is more environmentally friendly than chromium-tanned leather. However, there is a lack of scientific research assessing and comparing vegetable-and chromium-tanned leather in a wider context than the toxicity of chromium. To fill this gap, this study measured and compared the carbon, water, and energy footprint of vegetable and chromium leather processing technology and intermediate processing stages in 12 selected tanneries in seven different countries worldwide. Each tannery proved to be very individual, and therefore attempting to perform this type of analysis without simply producing meaningless generalities is a challenge for companies, researchers, and regulators. The variability in results demonstrates that secondary data for the tanning phase should be utilized with caution in a decision-making context. The use of primary data would be advisable for life cycle assessment studies of leather goods. No significant differences were found in the footprint of vegetable and chromium leather processes, but these are only indicative findings and need confirmation in further studies. An important area needing investigation is then how a fair comparison can be made between renewable natural materials and nonrenewable materials used in both leather-processing technologies.
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Indian Leather industry is recognized as one of the most promising foreign exchange earning sectors since early '70s of the previous century. The industry was hard hit by two consecutive foreign environment-bans since 1989. Along with that, few domestic environmental regulations also resulted into closure down of a number of leather tanneries in this period.
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From an environmental standpoint the leather industry is an easy target for the thoughtless or prejudiced observer. With the terminology of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and in particular of carbon footprinting frequently abused and rarely clearly defined it is hard for the impartial observer to get a clear understanding of the scientific facts. This paper looks at carbon footprinting in particular and CSR in general and relates them to the specifics of the leather industry. Based on a study of current literature and knowledge it demonstrates that leather can be proud of its credentials and the attacks made on it in these regards are unfounded.
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