OUR FACTORIES
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We work closely with our factories in Ecuador so we are confident that no-one is exploited in the creation of your shoes and endeavour to source our components and fabrics as locally to our factories as we possibly can to try and reduce our carbon footprint.
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THINGS WE SHOULD ALL KNOW
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Leather production is an inefficient use of water; a cow can drink up to 127 litres a day. Leather production uses large volumes of water in raising and slaughtering the animal, and then during the tanning process. Water scarcity effects 4 out of 10 people on our planet, but developing countries suffer the most. As leather tanning is mostly out sourced to developing countries the limited water they have access to is being used industrially instead; plus puts people at risk of contaminated water due to unsafe disposal of effluent.
On average, one cow hide will provide 18 pairs of leather shoes and each pair of shoes is accountable for the use of over 1.4 million litres of water! This figure includes the water used to rear and slaughter the cow, and to process the hide in to leather. Put simply, each time you purchase a new pair of leather shoes you are responsible for using as much water as having a bath everyday for over 40 years! In terms of disposal you'd think that leather products would be biodegradable, but the tanning agent renders it non biodegradable.
A whopping 25% of land surface is used for grazing livestock. We feel this land would be much better used to grow trees for timber, fuel, fruit and vegetables as a third of our land suffers desertification through the clearing of forests for grazing. Farm animals produce huge amounts of waste that leaches into the ground and surface water. This pollutes wells and rivers and is a huge contributor to the climate crisis.
The EU is the largest importer of reptile skins. Between 2000-2005 it is estimated that 3.4 million lizards, 2.9 million crocodiles and 3.4 million snake skins were brought in to the EU. In the US alligators and crocodiles are clubbed to death or have a chisel smashed through their spinal cord to paralyse them before being skinned alive; and wild snakes are also skinned alive.
With leather production increasing faster than meat production this brings to question the claim that leather is a by-product. If leather demand continues to increase and meat production decreases it is unlikely leather production would stop. Therefore anyone buying and wearing leather may be encouraging the slaughter of more animals.
All of our products are vegan friendly faux leather. We proudly donate 5% of our profits to human & animal charities.