Car manufacturers are increasingly offering environmentally-friendly alternatives to traditional leather car seats, such as BMW’s ‘Veganza’, Mercedes-Benz’s ‘Artico’ and Volvo’s ‘Nordico’. In particular, there’s a new trend for ‘vegan leather’ over and above any old ‘synthetic leather’ materials.
Let’s take a look at what these materials are actually made of, and how they compare with conventional leather trims that these brands have sold for decades.
So, why the move away from traditional leather?
There are a few reasons why car companies are increasingly turning towards man-made and organic leather alternatives.
Firstly, the industry has been responding to growing public demand for the use of environmentally-friendly materials in the last decade. Like the food and fashion industries, the motoring sector has been a heavy user of animal skins for many decades. With more and more customers looking for products that are animal-free and don’t harm the environment, car manufacturers are inevitably starting to respond.
Some brands have started offering ‘vegan leather’ as the default interior trim on some models, and this could potentially persuade would-be buyers to choose their model over alternatives still using real leather.
The ethics debate around leather
Even customers who are not vegans are starting to demand alternatives. Leather tanning is a byproduct of the mass animal slaughter in the agricultural industry, which produces high CO2 emissions. Concerns have also been raised about some ‘bad actors’ in the leather tanning industry with some potentially unsafe work conditions for workers – another significant ethical issue.
That said, these ‘bad actors’ do not represent the global leather tanning industry as a whole, which follows rigid health and safety codes. A 2021 study by the University of Montana also concludes that leather production has no direct impact on the number of cattle being slaughtered. On average, hides represent about 1% of the value of the animal at slaughter, and as much as 40% of animal hides are already disposed of without further processing.
Therefore, a decline in leather production in favour of animal-cruelty free alternatives is unlikely to reduce the large emissions of the agricultural industry as a whole. The leather industry argues that the animals will still be killed for other uses, so should their hides simply go to waste?
So, where should an ethical consumer stand in all of this? Using your buying power to make a stand against animal slaughter is noble, but customers should understand that wide scale rejection of traditional leather is unlikely to impact the amount of animal rearing and slaughter and its subsequent emissions, and has the potential to increase global emissions long term due to the disposal of an increasing amount of unprocessed hides and skins.
Buyers concerned about their impact on the environment should also question the leather alternative that their car brand is offering – some use synthetic materials produced using fossil fuels.
Car manufacturing costs and emissions
Car manufacturers are all working to reduce their manufacturing emissions – although you’re welcome to debate whether this is for moral reasons or legal obligations. Making real leather requires a lot of resources, including some harmful chemicals that in turn produce waste and pollution.
By comparison man-made and organic leathers require fewer resources to manufacture. Plant-based materials produce little to no waste, helping the car brand meet its lower emissions targets. On the other hand, man-made plastic materials that are often used produce similar amounts of waste to traditional leather production.
Finally and crucially, these man-made leather alternatives are simply cheaper to make, as the basic materials are often much cheaper to buy than animal hide, largely because the production process uses less energy and is more water-efficient. This makes offering leather alternatives an attractive option for car brands, as they get to cut costs and appeal to the rising number of eco-conscious buyers at the same time.
What is vegan leather made from?
At the time of writing, ‘vegan leather’ is a rather loose term for any leather-like material that does not include animal hide in its composition.
Car brands that sell vegan leather trims tend to remain tight-lipped about which materials they use. Low cost, low emission organic materials can include the likes of mushroom fungi, pineapple leaves, tree bark, apple skins and grape skins, which are dried and pressed into a thin sheet. When just these materials are used, car brands also often call this upholstery trim ‘plant-based leather’.
However, this plant-based leather is often lumped together with other synthetic materials under the term ‘vegan’. Also known as artifical leather, faux leather, leatherette or even pleather (plastic leather) – depending on what the marketing departments think will sound most appealing to customers – it’s made from plastics that are coated in vinyl and then textured to look like real leather.
No animal products are used in the production of synthetic leather, which certainly improves its ethical standing. From an environmental point of view, however, it’s not quite as clear-cut. The plastic materials used in synthetic leathers are made using fossil fuels and are not truly biodegradable, unlike animal hides, and the manufacturing process results in similar amounts of waste to traditional leather production.
In essence, the key benefit of synthetic leather to car companies is to save costs rather than save the environment.
Will I see any differences between these new eco-friendly leathers and real leather?
In short, yes. It may look almost like the real thing and make the cost of buying a new car slightly cheaper, but synthetic leathers are often less durable than natural leather, which means they aren’t likely to last as long and are more prone to tearing. If you’re buying a used car that’s several years old, this could be quite noticeable.
This could lead to unexpected costs to repair your car seats compared to natural leather seats, so your longer-term ownership costs could be higher.
Plastic-based leathers also don’t offer as much ventilation as natural leather, so you may notice more perspiration on your lower back and legs on longer drives, especially in warmer weather – in much the same way that polyester fabrics in your clothes don’t offer as much air circulation as natural cottons or wools.
Although the manufacturing process for vinyl and synthetic trims have improved over the years, many artificial leathers lack the same softness and suppleness as natural leather, so they may not feel as comfortable. This also accelerates wear, as the materials don’t move and stretch like natural fibres do.
Artificial leathers also don’t age naturally over time and use like real leather, so you won’t get a natural patina to a car interior like you see in older luxury cars that feature real leather.
Vegan and synthetic leathers: pros and cons
Pros
- Usually cheaper than real leather (though vegan leather can come with a premium, depending on the brand)
- No animals are slaughtered to produce car interiors
- Can be more eco-friendly to produce, although not as much as you might think
Cons
- Not as tough or durable as these materials are thinner
- Not as supple as natural leather, so not always as comfortable
Which car brands offer vegan leather or synthetic leather trims?
Tesla was one of the pioneers of this movement, and started offering vegan upholstery options a few years ago. Today, a growing number of brands, from mainstream manufacturers to luxury marques, offer their own alternatives to traditional leather trims. Some examples are:
- Bentley was one of the first to jump on this eco-friendly trend. It started offering vegan leathers in 2017, selling leather alternatives made of mushrooms and grape skins.
- BMW made a commitment to rolling out vegan leather interiors last year. The company now offers its ‘Veganza’ upholstery as standard in its new 5 Series and 7 Series model lines.
- Ford offers the electric Mustang Mach-E as standard with a faux leather interior, which won an award from animal-rights charity PETA for being ‘cow-friendly’.
- Mercedes-Benz has offered ‘Artico’ (quite literally a portmanteau of ‘artifical cow’) upholstery across its range for many years, and has trialled mushroom- and cactus-based vegan leathers in a recent concept car.
- Mini, like its parent company BMW, has made a commitment to selling 100% sustainable vehicles in the near future, and vegan leather plays a part in this.
- Tesla‘s most popular models, the Model 3 and Model Y, both come as standard with synthetic leather seats and a vegan leather steering wheel.
- Toyota has its own brand of faux leather called ‘Softex’, which it says is as durable as real leather. Unfortunately it’s not currently available on the brand’s new car range in the UK.
- Volvo has made a commitment to stop using traditional leather altogether by 2030. Its ‘Nordico’ leather alternative is made from recycled bottles and corks from the wine industry, and organic materials sourced from forests in Finland and Sweden.
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