Where Does Leather Come From?

• Refining a by-product of the milk and meat industry into a high-value areal material
• Leather manufacturers depend on the agricultural industry.
• The disposal of hides and the associated environmental burden is avoided.

Animal Welfare

• The quality of the leather depends on the quality of hides.
• The quality of hides depends on species-appropriate animal husbandry.
• Stringent European standards as a minimum requirement for suppliers in all sales markets

We are committed to animal welfare.

Legal standards as a minimum requirement
EU animal welfare policy:
Basic principle based on the 5 freedoms of animal welfare

• Freedom from hunger, malnutrition, and thirst
• Freedom from fear and distress
• Freedom from physical discomfort and discomfort due to cold or heat
• Freedom from pain, injury, and illness
• Freedom to live out normal behavioral patterns

Legal standards as a minimum requirement
 
 Directive (EC) No.1/2005 on the protection of animals during transport (EU 2005)

• Limited transport times
• Controlled transports

• Avoidance of stress and pain
• Slaughtering only by qualified personnel

• Type of killing or stunning
• Veterinary medicine control
• No processing of hides from wild animals according to the Washington Convention (1983)

• Active control of our suppliers
• We only use suppliers who are committed to animal welfare
• Regular auditing of suppliers by Wollsdorf
• Adherence up to the slaughterhouse is ensured.

• Goods receiving controls, supplier audits, chemical assessments, ongoing emission measurements and risk analyses in product development
• Tracing raw materials, semi-finished and finished products by labelling
• Pure-batch usage of chemicals
• Ongoing analyses and random sampling to ensure adherence

Sustainability

1. Avoiding-Avoiding harmful chemicals
2. Reducing-Reducing water and energy consumption
3. Recovering-By-products of leather production provide valuable raw materials for other industries.
4. Eliminating-Thermal recovery of residual substances for energy production

Chemicals

• Examination of all chemicals for possible negative impacts on employees, customers, and the environment
• Replacing critical chemicals with ecologically harmless chemicals
• Potentially environmentally hazardous and harmful substances are excluded (REACH candidate list, customer requirements, wastewater treatment plant, occupational safety)
• Reduction of chrome tanning by 90 %, customer-dependent usage
• Minimizing the usage of chemicals in the area of finishing (raster application instead of spray technology, new nozzle technology)
• Converting solvent-containing finishing to a water-based system: Thereby reducing solvent emissions to 15 % (significantly below the current BAT-EU 2013)

• Reduction of water usage and wastewater cleaning as important items of ecological awareness
• Process optimization in recent years has led to a strong reduction of water and chemical usage: We are almost 50 % below the EU-BAT criteria (EU 2013) with 30 m³/t of raw material induction based on our current consumption of less than 13-16 m³ of water/t of raw material.

Wastewater

Introduction into bodies of water does not have a negative biological impact.
Wastewater is optimally cleaned.

• Since 2009, ongoing adaptation of our biological effluent treatment plant –according to the latest state of the art
• 29 external examination per year
• Significant dissidence of most threshold values at the effluent treatment plant as e.g., nitrogen elimination > 90 % –threshold value 75 %, ammonium nitrogen < 2 mg/l –threshold value 12 mg/l

Energy –CO2 Footprint
CO2-neutral since 2016

• Usage of renewable energies (hydroelectric power, wind power, …)
• Natural gas as a fossil energy source is successively replaced with electricity.
• Savings of over 1 GWh of energy/year in the last 5 years
• Energy usage at our ECO2L-certified site is thereby significantly below the energy benchmark “Optimal Energy Efficiency in Tanning”.
• Support for the climate protection project “Rainforest”: Additional purchasing of climate certificates for the conservation of endangered rainforest areas in Costa Rica

• Reduction of VOC emissions to less than 23 g of carbon per m² of finished leather (threshold values according to Austrian VOC plant regulation < 75 mg/m² of leather)
• Reduction or elimination of odors due to desulphurization (reduction of hydrogen sulfide) and osmotic barriers

By-products and waste
Material recovery, recycling, and avoidance

• By-products: high-value raw materials for the foodstuffs industry (e.g., gelatin, collagen)
• Flesh split: Split leather
• Shavings: Fertilizer industry
• Machine adhesive leather: Animal fat --> Biodiesel production
• Organic sludge: Biogas (electricity and heat)
• Sewage sludge: Water drainage up to 50 % and thermal extraction in thermal recovery
• Industry waste: Final thermal recovery and substitute fuels

• 100 % of by-products are used as high-value raw materials.

• Approx. 27 % of waste is converted into energy sources.
• 32 % is used in biogas facilities.
• 34% is used for thermal recovery (with energy decoupling).
• Currently, only 7 % of waste must be thermally/chemically disposed.
• We have achieved the following values due to ongoing activities:
• 9-12 kg of raw material/m² of finished leather
• 250-300 kg of chemicals/t of raw materials (EU-BAT: 425 kg)
• 13-16 m³ water/t of raw material used (EU-BAT: 30 m³)
• 93 % of waste is reused or thermally recovered.
• VOC emissions with 23 g/m² of finished leather are significantly below legal threshold values.