On the Road to the Carbon Neutral Leather

Leather is an important part of the consumer lifestyle product segment owing to its appeal, durability and mechanical properties. Interestingly, leather is also a good example of a circular economy, where the byproduct of the meat industry, viz., is converted into a value-added product called leather. From being a red-category industry due to the high emission load of organics and metal ions, the industry has progressed significantly to adopt cleaner process technologies and also zero liquid discharge. The leather industry has a great potential to achieve carbon neutrality and net zero emissions from the sector, which can further be improved through intelligent manufacturing and AI-driven supply-chain logistics. In this paper, we focus on the development of a biorefinery platform that concentrates on converting biomass to bioproducts of increased economic potential and having the possibility to attain carbon neutrality and a circular economy by integrating available technologies in the chain of animal to meat and leather products.