The Leather Traceability Cluster was launched in September 2022 at Lineapelle after COTANCE called leather certification bodies to align their incipient traceability schemes in order to facilitate mutual and official recognition.
The initial call was answered by ICEC, LWG, SLF, OEKO-TEX®, as well as Textile Exchange who agreed to hammer out common minimum essential elements of traceability and evidence of verification to be present in a scheme. The success of the initiative quickly triggered the interest of CEN Standardisation experts from UNIC (Italy), FILK (Germany) and AQC (Switzerland), NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB), as well as IGOs such as UNECE and UNIDO.
The group expanded further with leather sector organisations CICB/CSCB (Brazil), LHCA (US) and AQC (Switzerland).
All signed the Terms of Reference that guide the activities of the LEATHER TRACEABILITY CLUSTER (LTC) alliance.