Leather’s impact on the environment: Good or bad?

And is it that simple?

Here to provide some balance in the raging debate about the use of our land, fast fashion and our future – Rewind is a new documentary series. Courtesy of The Wine Show and Blue Juice’s award winning Director Carl Prechezer, and funded by Real Leather. Stay Different., it makes the case for using leather as a sustainable by-product of the meat and dairy industries – and as a way to break the fast fashion cycle.

The message is simple. By ‘Rewinding’, looking back at how we used to manage the land and use its outputs, we can begin to reverse the damage caused to our soils through intensive farming and provide a natural alternative to the synthetic materials and faux leathers that are plastic based and so polluting our planet.

In four five-minute episodes, Farming, Fashion, Food and the Future, Rewind captures the thoughts of chefs and tanners, scientists and fashion editors, NGOs and environmental auditors – and draws on some surprising data and research from a range of sources as diverse as The United Nations and BP. The result is an interesting mix of hard data and personal perspectives that challenges the current vogue on what we should eat or wear, and what our choices mean for our planet. We can’t rewind history, but we can shape our future.

The outtake: Leather, and other natural fabrics have a critical role to play in a sustainable fashion future – which means weaning the industry of its reliance on fossil fuels. And the farming industry, which supplies the materials and fabrics, must be run efficiently and sustainably if we are to not only clothe, but feed, the planet.