Leather production involves welfare concerns both from farming and from the tanning process itself.
Leather welfare concerns are both direct — the welfare conditions of cattle whose hides become leather — and indirect — the environmental and community health impacts of tannery processes. Leather is often framed as a meat industry byproduct, but demand for leather provides economic incentive for cattle ranching that would not exist from meat alone. Chromium tanning creates toxic waste that pollutes water supplies in developing countries where most global tanning occurs. Plant-based and lab-grown leather alternatives are improving in quality and approaching price parity in some categories.