The Guardian’s Case for ‘Good Leather’ Falls Apart

The Guardian has published what looks, at first glance, like a balanced investigation into whether animal-free alternatives to leather are actually better for the environment. Some contain plastic. Some are difficult to repair. Some highly promoted new materials have struggled to reach commercial scale. All fair points. But then something strange happens. The scrutiny applied to alternatives gradually disappears when the subject turns back to animal skin. By the end, we are being told about cattle grazing in “humane, healthy ways”, leather supposedly producing “net positive outcomes” and the possibility of replacing “bad leather” with “good leather”. This is no longer simply an investigation into materials. It has become a veiled defence of using animals. So we are giving it the full debunk.

The Guardian mistakes slaughter for leather demand

Perhaps the clearest problem comes surprisingly early. The Guardian reports that global production of raw hides increased from 10.5 million tonnes in 2005 to 13.8 million tonnes in 2024. It then presents this as evidence that animal-free alternatives have failed to slow demand for animal leather. There is an enormous problem with that argument. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization says hide and skin production is largely determined by the number of animals being slaughtered, not demand for leather. It describes their output as “virtually inelastic” to changes in leather prices and demand because hides are secondary outputs of industries killing animals primarily for flesh. In other words, more skins being produced does not automatically mean more people wanted leather. It can simply mean more animals were killed.

We have already seen exactly what happens when those two things diverge. In Australia, demand for animal skins collapsed so badly that skins became almost worthless even though animals continued being slaughtered. WWF has similarly reported that millions of cattle hides have sometimes gone unused because demand for leather failed to keep pace with the number of animals being killed. So the Guardian takes a statistic driven heavily by slaughter and presents it as evidence of consumer demand for skin. It isn’t.

Leather is not environmentally free because the animal was also eaten

The article correctly describes hides as a co-product of the flesh industry. That does not make leather environmentally free. Researchers assessing emissions from cattle production allocate part of the environmental burden to hides precisely because skins have economic value. The exact proportion varies depending on prices and methodology, but treating the hide as having no environmental responsibility simply because other parts of the animal are sold is not how lifecycle assessment works. And buying skin still creates additional revenue from the body of an animal who has been exploited and killed. The cattle industry itself acknowledges that hide prices contribute to the total value processors receive from an animal and can affect how much processors can pay for cattle.

Calling skin a co-product does not make the ethical problem disappear.

It describes the business model.

Yes, some animal-free leather contains plastic

This is the part of the Guardian article that sounds most convincing because much of it is true. Many conventional synthetic leathers use polyurethane or PVC. Some newer plant-based alternatives also contain polymer binders or coatings. We should not pretend otherwise. An animal-free material does not become environmentally perfect simply because no animal was killed to produce it. But here is the part readers are much less likely to learn from the article: animal leather can contain plastics too.

Polyurethane is widely used in conventional leather production, including during retanning and surface finishing. Researchers describe polyurethane coatings as an established part of leather manufacturing alongside acrylic polymers and other synthetic materials. Research into finished leather has likewise examined polyurethane, acrylics, resins and lacquers because these are among the materials actually used to finish commercial animal leather.

So the comparison is not: plastic alternative versus natural skin. It can be: plastic-containing alternative versus chemically tanned and polymer-coated animal skin. That is rather less useful if the objective is to rehabilitate leather.

The latest comparisons do not make animal skin look good

The Guardian raises questions about environmental assessment methods. That is reasonable. Lifecycle assessments depend on system boundaries, allocation decisions and assumptions about lifespan. But recent research still gives us something important to work with. A peer-reviewed 2026 study compared eight footwear materials using lifecycle assessment alongside a broader screening methodology. Within its cradle-to-gate assessment, bovine leather had the highest environmental impacts of the materials studied. Fossil-based alternatives had the lowest impacts, while bio-based and partly bio-based alternatives generally fell between the two. The researchers also acknowledged a trade-off between environmental impact and durability. Another major study published in 2026 estimated the carbon footprint of finished bovine leather at 187.1kg CO2-equivalent per kilogram, compared with 14.9kg for the animal-free alternatives included in its meta-analysis. The leather industry has challenged the allocation method used in that paper, arguing that too much of cattle farming’s emissions were assigned to the hide. Fine. Scientific disagreements about allocation should be examined. But notice what that does not establish. It does not establish that animal leather is environmentally superior. One major 2026 analysis puts its climate impact dramatically above the alternatives it studied. Another 2026 comparison finds bovine leather had the worst environmental performance within its study boundaries.

That is rather different from the story the Guardian eventually tells.

Animal skin does not simply return harmlessly to nature

There is also a reason skin has to be tanned in the first place. Untreated skin decomposes. Leather manufacturing deliberately stabilises collagen so that decomposition is slowed or prevented. Tanning can involve chromium salts, vegetable tannins, aldehydes, synthetic tanning agents, resins and other chemicals. Research into finished leather shows that biodegradability declines through tanning, post-tanning and finishing as additional chemicals and polymer coatings are added. Leather manufacturing is also water- and chemical-intensive. A review of post-tanning processes reported substantial chemical and water use and found untreated wastewater could contain high concentrations of salts and poorly biodegradable pollution. Again, none of this means polyurethane is wonderful.

It means presenting animal skin as the wholesome “natural” alternative to plastic is nonsense.

Then comes “regenerative” leather

This is where the article stops merely scrutinising materials and starts doing the industry’s moral work for it. After discussing deforestation, methane and pollution, the Guardian pivots towards “regenerative” farming. We are told regeneratively farmed leather could improve soil, sequester carbon, increase biodiversity and restore water cycles. The article then ends by imagining cattle grazing in “humane, healthy ways” and producing leather with “net positive outcomes”. That is an extraordinary leap. Research led by Oxford scientists reviewing grazing and climate concluded that soil-carbon sequestration from grazing can occur in some circumstances, but its potential is limited, reversible and incapable of compensating for livestock emissions at anything like current global production levels. And we now have newer evidence. A 2026 Nature Food study of Australian sheep farms found regenerative practices could improve some outcomes, but methane from the animals remained the dominant greenhouse-gas source. The University of Tasmania’s explanation of the same research makes the problem particularly clear: increasing soil carbon could reduce part of the climate impact, but additional methane from the animals could offset those gains.

So carbon stored in soil does not magically cancel the animal standing above it producing methane.

The biodiversity story is no better

There are circumstances in which particular grazing systems can maintain certain grassland habitats. That is very different from claiming cattle farming is broadly good for biodiversity. A Nature Sustainability study examining biodiversity-compatible grazing intensities estimated that only around 26% to 40% of current grassland-based ruminant flesh production could fit within the biodiversity limits it modelled. The 2026 Nature Food study found animal-derived foods were responsible for 71% of the agricultural biodiversity losses assessed, with products from cattle responsible for a huge share. Long-term experimental research has also found that livestock grazing can substantially reduce biodiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality, particularly in more arid grassland systems. So yes, you can compare destructive grazing with less destructive grazing and find improvements. You can also compare punching someone five times with punching them ten times.

Reducing the damage does not transform the activity into a positive good.

There is no “good leather”

And this is the part the Guardian never seriously confronts. Leather is skin. Not fabric inspired by skin. Not agricultural waste that appeared independently of an animal. Skin. It belonged to somebody. Whether the cow grazed on pasture, whether the farm increased soil carbon, whether the tannery used fewer toxic chemicals and whether the resulting handbag lasts 30 years changes none of that. Collective Fashion Justice has specifically examined the claims made around “regenerative leather”, arguing that improvements in land management are being used to obscure the environmental costs and animal exploitation that remain inherent in leather production. There are perfectly legitimate questions to ask about animal-free leather.

How much plastic does it contain?

How long will it last?

Can it be repaired?

Can we make better materials with fewer fossil fuels?

Can we buy less in the first place?

We should ask all of them.

But there is another question that somehow disappears when journalists reach the end of these comparisons:

Why are we still trying to find a better way to wear somebody’s skin?

The Guardian starts with legitimate scrutiny of animal-free materials. It ends by asking whether we can replace “bad leather” with “good leather”. That is the sleight of hand running through the piece. Animal-free materials have to prove they are low-carbon, biodegradable, plastic-free, durable, repairable and commercially scalable.

Animal skin eventually gets waved through on the promise that perhaps the cow could have grazed more nicely beforehand. The answer to environmentally destructive animal exploitation is not environmentally improved animal exploitation. And the alternative to bad leather is not good leather. It is leaving animals out of it.