Textile Exchange Introduces the Leather Impact Accelerator (LIA)Textile Exchange Introduces the Leather Impact Accelerator (LIA)
Lubbock, Texas | April 21, 2020 – Textile Exchange introduces the Leather Impact Accelerator (LIA), a name change from the initiative formerly known as the “Responsible Leather” program. The first drafts of LIA 1.0 are now being released for stakeholder consultation and program piloting.
The goal of LIA is to accelerate positive impacts in the leather industry through widescale adoption of better practices, including mitigating climate change, protecting biodiversity, respecting social and animal welfare, and reducing the environmental impacts of leather production.
The Leather Impact Accelerator currently addresses the following scopes within the leather supply chain:
Farm:
- Animal Welfare
- Deforestation/conversion-Free (DCF)
- Live animal traceability
Leather Production:
- Environmental
- Social
- Hide traceability
In the spirit of continuous improvement, additional scopes will be added over time, and the current expectations will be strengthened.
“We are proud to lead on creating the Leather Impact Accelerator, a powerful tool that brands can use to convey their expectations to their supply chains, as well as to support better practices and share these actions with consumers,” said La Rhea Pepper, Managing Director at Textile Exchange.
The Leather Impact Accelerator (LIA) is not a standard – it is designed to leverage and add value to the work that is already being done in the beef and leather industries. To this end, LIA uses standards benchmarks to set a minimum threshold for practices and give recognition to those who meet or exceed them. Brands can use Impact Incentives to provide direct financial support to farmers that meet LIA benchmarks. The Claims Framework will provide guidance for all LIA participants to make credible claims.
Textile Exchange is looking for feedback on the draft LIA documents, which can be found on its website. Stakeholders may share their feedback through the online form during the 30-day consultation period, which ends on June 5, 2020.
For more information on participating in a pilot, please contact LIA@TextileExchange.org.
LIA Webinar
Join us for a webinar to learn more about the Leather Impact Accelerator (LIA). Visit LeatherImpactAccelerator.org for more details.
Date: Tuesday, May 12th
Time: 10:00 US Eastern | 16:00 CET
Registration: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Ym5iyM_1Smai7YFGmdVcbQ
Responsible Leather Round Table (RLRT)
The work on LIA has been led by the International Working Group that sits under the RLRT. The Responsible Leather Round Table is a neutral place for stakeholders to come together to learn and discuss the issues and opportunities facing the leather industry, and to identify areas for alignment and action.
The RLRT meets regularly, find out how you can participate here.
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