The 30th IULTCS Congress, held at the Beijing International hotel, Beijing, October 11-14, was one of the friendliest and best organised IULTCS congresses in recent times. The China Leather Industry Association (CLIA) organised the congress on behalf of the IULTCS

The International Council of Tanners held their annual meeting on March 30 in Hong Kong. Labelling and REACH regulations were the main subjects of discussion.

Leading ‘futurologist' David Shah was invited by APLF to predict the future of luxury in a seminar held during the fair. The entertaining and informative session, entitled ‘Luxury goods and the leather industry - Follow the money', was moderated by Mike Redwood.

Benchmarking is how companies compare themselves with others to see how they are measuring up. Despite the general acceptance of the concept, Jakov Buljan, Unido consultant, said that many tanners do not like to admit that they do not know what benchmarking is.

The Considered Team acts as the product development arm of product responsibility for Nike and acts as an in-house R&D centre and advisory centre for more sustainable products. When we talk about considered today we are saying: Consider your choices, consider your impact.

Theo Staikos, Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Loughborough University, said that currently more than 20 billion pairs of shoes are consumed worldwide every year, and this figure continues to rise. This creates an enormous amount of post-consumer (end-of-life) shoe waste that is currently being disposed in landfill sites around the world; landfill sites which can result in serious environmental pollution and land contamination.

Introductory thoughts

China now produces 40% of the world's leather and over 70% of the world's shoes. India has 20% of the world's livestock that will supply hides to the market to be converted into leather. Neither of these countries is new to manufacturing leather, both have had indigenous production for the home market and in-depth training facilities for future technologists for a long time. Recent changes in leather businesses and manufacturing of leather product have followed the trend of other industries and production and have moved or are moving to China.

The second IULTCS Eurocongress took place in Istanbul, Türkiye, in the last week of May and was a testament to skilful management and generous hospitality. If Detek, the Turkish association responsible for organising the conference, viewed the event as a practice run before the IULTCS Congress due to take place there in 2013, they more than succeeded. It was much appreciated that the organisers did their best to keep speakers to their allotted timetable (this was not always easy) and another notable achievement was that all the presentations were given in English.

On the day before APLF opened in Hong Kong, Leather International together with BLC Leather Technology Centre held a very successful Footwear Leather Conference. It was sponsored by APLF and LANXESS and the high quality of the presentations from the global brands along with groundbreaking ideas for new footwear materials ensured an interesting day for delegates.