Toute l'actualitéThe leather sector occupies a distinctive position within textile and fashion value chains. Often regarded as a by-product of the meat and dairy industries, bovine hides in fact embody a significant share of the environmental impacts associated with livestock production. Behind every processed hide lie systemic challenges: greenhouse gas emissions, imported deforestation linked to animal feed, growing pressure on water resources, soil degradation, and biodiversity loss. According to the FAO, livestock accounts for approximately 14.5% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, the majority of which are attributable to cattle. In this context, leather sustainability cannot be limited to improvements in industrial processing: it requires a profound transformation of agricultural practices. It is precisely at this upstream level that regenerative agriculture offers structuring levers to reshape the sector’s sourcing models.
Leather Supply Chains: Understanding the Underlying Agricultural Challenges
Cattle Farming: A Sector Struggling to Align with Sustainability Pathways
Converging analyses from the FAO, the IPCC and INRAE highlight that cattle farming remains one of the most complex agricultural sectors to align with climate trajectories, due to its significant share of enteric methane emissions and its structural link to deforestation dynamics driven by animal feed production.
Dominant intensive systems rely heavily on external inputs, including mineral fertilizers, agrochemicals and imported feed concentrates. In many European regions, landscape simplification and the progressive disappearance of traditional agroforestry systems—such as the historic bocage landscapes of Normandy—have weakened the ecological resilience of farms.
This situation is all the more critical as farmers are on the frontline of climate change impacts. Recurrent droughts, extreme weather events and declining pasture productivity are undermining farm economic stability. At the same time, the agroecological transitions expected of the sector require significant technical and human investment: rethinking grazing management, diversifying cropping systems, restoring soil fertility and reducing input dependency. These transformations carry short-term risks, particularly in terms of yields and financial stability, which many farmers cannot shoulder alone.
The absence of sufficiently strong financial incentives therefore constitutes a major barrier to engagement in the transition. Without structured support, sustainability is too often perceived as an additional constraint rather than a resilience strategy.
Animal Feed and Deforestation: A Strategic Blind Spot
Among the key drivers of leather’s environmental footprint, animal feed occupies a central role. A significant share of the plant proteins consumed by European cattle is imported, particularly soy grown in South America. This dependency directly contributes to deforestation and the conversion of natural ecosystems, notably in the Amazon.
The European Union itself acknowledges its responsibility in imported deforestation, estimated at nearly 10% of the global total associated with international trade. In this context, strengthening feed self-sufficiency at farm level emerges as a major strategic lever. Producing a greater share of livestock feed locally—through diversified and resilient cropping systems—not only reduces farms’ carbon footprint but also helps break the structural link between cattle farming and deforestation.
Agricultural Levers for Transformation: Towards Regenerative Leather
To address these challenges, Reforest’Action builds its approach on three complementary pillars of regenerative agriculture applied to cattle farming: regenerative soil and crop management, silvopastoral systems, and rotational grazing.
Restoring Soils to Reinvent Agricultural Performance
Regenerative soil and crop management forms the foundation of the transition. It relies on a coherent set of practices designed to restore soil biological functions: reduced mechanical tillage, the use of cover crops, extended and diversified crop rotations, the development of polycultures, and the progressive reduction of mineral fertilizer use.
These practices fundamentally transform agroecosystem functioning. By increasing soil organic matter, they enhance carbon storage while reducing emissions linked to mineral fertilizers and field operations. Better-structured soils improve water infiltration, limit runoff and erosion, and strengthen resilience to drought.
Global meta-analyses based on field data indicate that introducing cover crops can increase soil carbon stocks by approximately 0.3 to 1 tonne of CO₂e per hectare per year, depending on pedoclimatic conditions and management practices. In livestock systems—where soils already represent a major carbon sink—such gains are decisive in improving leather’s overall carbon footprint.
Silvopastoral Systems: Reconnecting Trees and Livestock
Silvopastoral systems occupy a central role in Reforest’Action’s approach. By reintroducing trees, hedgerows and wooded alignments into pasturelands, these systems reconnect with historically rooted agricultural models while adapting them to contemporary challenges.
Trees play a multifunctional role. Scientific research on agroforestry consistently shows that integrating trees into agricultural systems significantly increases carbon stocks, both in above-ground biomass and in soils, compared to treeless systems. Although the magnitude of sequestration varies according to climate, planting density and management practices, its contribution is sufficiently well documented to be integrated into farm-level carbon accounting.
Trees also play a decisive role in soil protection. When topsoil erodes, fundamental soil functions deteriorate: rooting depth declines, water retention capacity weakens, and nutrients become less accessible to crops. The FAO notes that in cases of severe erosion, the degradation of soil ecological functions can result in substantial yield losses, reaching up to 50% in the most extreme situations. By slowing runoff, stabilizing surface horizons and strengthening soil structure through root systems, agroforestry systems offer a strategic lever to preserve long-term land productivity.
From a hydrological perspective, reduced runoff and improved infiltration help protect the quality of surface and groundwater. Trees also provide essential microclimatic regulation: agroforestry trees can reduce wind speed over distances several times their height, helping stabilize production conditions in the face of climate variability.
In certain contexts, trees can also contribute directly to livestock feeding. Some fodder tree species produce leaves and young shoots that can be consumed by ruminants, particularly during summer periods when pasture productivity declines. This complementary resource—often rich in minerals and sometimes in protein—can strengthen farm feed autonomy. However, not all tree species are suitable for this purpose, and the potential for fodder valorization depends on species selection, management practices and the specific needs of the livestock involved.
For animals, the presence of trees provides essential shade during heatwaves, improves thermal comfort and contributes to overall herd welfare. At farm scale, silvopastoral systems also create opportunities for economic diversification through the valorization of tree-based products such as timber, fruit or biomass.
Rotational Grazing: A Key to Ecological Pasture Productivity
Rotational grazing constitutes the third pillar of the transition. By dividing pastureland into multiple paddocks and regularly moving livestock, this practice prevents overgrazing and allows vegetation sufficient time to regenerate.
Its benefits are both agronomic and environmental. Soils experience less compaction, root systems develop more extensively, and organic matter gradually accumulates. Denser vegetative cover protects soils from climatic stress and supports biodiversity.
From an economic and environmental standpoint, rotational grazing improves the efficiency of forage resource use. By reducing reliance on fertilizers and purchased feed, it lowers production costs while mitigating deforestation risks associated with imported feed. It also enhances animal health and productivity by reducing parasite pressure and providing more favorable grazing conditions.
Measuring to Transform: A Transition Grounded in Robust Indicators
The credibility of regenerative leather supply chains depends on the ability to accurately measure environmental and socio-economic impacts. The framework developed by Reforest’Action relies on a structured methodology ranging from baseline assessment to trajectory verification, including medium-term projections and ongoing monitoring.
Indicators cover all key dimensions of sustainability. They include enteric methane emissions, emissions linked to manure management, mineral nitrogen use, emissions per unit of output, as well as carbon storage in soils and biomass. These climate-related metrics are complemented by biodiversity indicators, water quality metrics, economic performance measures and feed autonomy indicators.
Alignment with the French Low Carbon Label (Label Bas Carbone) ensures institutional and methodological recognition of the results achieved. The certification of emission reductions and carbon sequestration—materialized through carbon units—constitutes a key economic lever to secure the transition phase and encourage long-term adoption of regenerative practices by farmers.
However, transformation cannot stop at the farm gate. Valorizing leather derived from regenerative practices also requires coordination with slaughterhouses to ensure identification, segregation and traceability of hides at the point of processing. This intermediary link is decisive: without logistical organization across the value chain, environmental benefits generated upstream risk remaining invisible and unrecognized in the market.
Reforest’Action: Architect of Regenerative Leather Supply Chains
With over fifteen years of experience designing and implementing ecosystem regeneration projects worldwide, Reforest’Action has established itself as a structuring actor in the agricultural transition, mobilizing hundreds of economic partners around the sustainable securing of raw materials.
Through its regenerative agriculture programs, Reforest’Action develops support frameworks combining agroforestry expertise, supply chain structuring and robust carbon accounting methodologies. Its approach is based on long-term farmer engagement, integrating initial diagnostics, transition planning and ongoing environmental and economic performance monitoring.
By aligning environmental performance, economic viability and carbon traceability, Reforest’Action positions itself as a true architect of regenerative supply chains, capable of meeting the growing expectations of brands and territories alike.
The sustainability of leather supply chains is not determined solely in processing facilities, but in the agricultural landscapes where raw materials are produced. Pastures, crop rotations, hedgerows and livestock feeding systems ultimately shape the sector’s climate footprint, its dependence on imported deforestation, and the resilience of rural territories. Combining feed autonomy, soil restoration, silvopastoral systems, rotational grazing and rigorous impact measurement makes it possible to transform the leather sector at its roots. At a time when the European Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR) is redefining traceability and compliance requirements for raw materials, organizing regenerative leather supply chains has become a strategic imperative as much as an environmental one. By structuring regenerative supply chains, Reforest’Action is paving the way for leather that is compatible with planetary boundaries, while strengthening the long-term resilience of farmers and territories.