Whereas carmakers are more and more providing leather-free premium upholstery choices created utilizing varied artificial and recycled supplies, some very high-end automobiles demand the unrivaled look, really feel, and scent of actual leather-based.
For these purposes, Scottish leather-based supplier Bridge of Weir Leather-based is creating low-impact leather-based supplies which can be tanned utilizing new strategies that scale back or get rid of the usage of chrome, heavy metals, and aldehydes.
The corporate has developed two leather-tanning processes it calls BioTAN and FreeTAN, to advance its low-carbon, low-impact agenda. BioTAN know-how incrementally will increase bio-based content material from the chrome-free leather-based course of, whereas FreeTAN removes heavy metals and chrome. This improves the leather-based’s biodegradability properties with out compromising aesthetics or efficiency.
Bridge of Weir says these strategies, which have been developed during the last 4 years, produce the bottom carbon leather-based out there for the automotive business, serving to carmakers scale back their carbon impression with out counting on doubtful offsets.
The supply leather-based is produced with Bridge of Weir’s regionally sourced, deforestation-free leather-based with one hundred pc traceability, as licensed by the UK Cattle Tracing Scheme, which guarantees the very best requirements of animal welfare and no threat of deforestation.
The tanning course of stabilizes the collagen structural protein within the uncooked hides to create leather-based. Bridge of Weir says that the BioTAN course of incrementally will increase the bio-content inside the chrome-free leather-based tanning course of to greater than 50 % to realize a steadiness between environmental sustainability, efficiency, and high quality
The FreeTAN course of gives a full alternative of current tanning chemistry with compostable know-how. It’s fully chrome-free, heavy metal-free, and aldehyde-free with promising biodegradability properties.
“For over twenty years, we have now invested in pioneering new initiatives which optimize and enhance sustainability, high quality, and productiveness,” mentioned Simon Cook dinner, Group Technical Director at Bridge of Weir Leather-based. “With our new BioTAN and FreeTAN improvements, we’re additional elevating the bar for environmentally sustainable leather-based requirements, these revolutionary applied sciences being a significant subsequent step on our journey to extend the bio-based renewable carbon content material of our leather-based, additional cementing our key function in supporting automotive makers’ environmental targets.”
The corporate acknowledges that these achievements are solely the start of its journey, not the vacation spot, he added. “What’s extra, that is solely the beginning. The leather-based of the long run for us is one hundred pc bio-based content material, fully chrome-free, heavy metal-free, aldehyde-free, and fully biodegradable,” Cook dinner mentioned. “We’re dedicated to internet zero for our operations (Scope 1 and a pair of) by 2025 – forward of Scotland’s net-zero ambitions – and delivering zero waste to landfill by the identical yr, additional fortifying our sustainability pledges.”
Carmakers at present utilizing Bridge of Weir Leather-based merchandise embody Aston Martin, McLaren, Jaguar Land Rover, and Polestar. The corporate was based by Arthur Muirhead in 1905 and has been a enterprise inside the Scottish Leather-based Group since 1965. It produces its leathers at its amenities in Bridge of Weir, Scotland.
