Sustainable Leather Foundation has welcomed its first Brazilian Tannery into partnership as Vancouros joins the multi-stakeholder initiative.
“One of the guiding principles of SLF is that work has to be focused across all sectors and all levels of ability within the leather value chain” explains Deborah Taylor, Managing Director of SLF. She continues “ensuring we have first class tanneries onboard is a vital part of the programme as they are our visionaries, and they are able to lead the way in terms of what is possible. So SLF is delighted that Vancouros have now joined us as a compliance partner, especially as they have already been working on environmental improvement for the last decade. With a wealth of experience around environmental concerns including deforestation, and a keen focus on traceability systems, Vancouros are now extending their objectives to include other social and governance aspects of good practice.
We are looking forward to exploring how we can work with Vancouros to support even better traceability and transparency for the South American regions, and also to support with their social compliance goals, as this area is becoming more important within the overall environmental, social and economic responsibility expectations”.
SLF’s Transparency Dashboard™ and modular, inclusive approach alleviates duplication of effort, by recognising any existing certifications and mapping them onto the dashboard before then evaluating any gaps in performance or certification. Putting the emphasis on meeting a required standard instead of who the provider is, makes it a more equitable and accessible model that gives brands a real methodology for creating strong partnerships with their suppliers both now and into the future.
