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Asiatan is a tannery committed to changing the narrative behind leather.
Leather is the ultimate up-cycle material, so long as we do the right thing. Leather products last longer, have higher value and just work better than any other oil-based, synthetic material.
The first principle was to add value to materials. Competing only with price was not value. Material interest, performance, variety of raw material, servicing customers was the basis of adding value.
The second principle was that no business has the right to pollute – all businesses have a responsibility to the environment. Reduction of waste, energy, water, chemistry and carbon footprint, needs to be the number one priority of our companies.
The third principle was that the business of business should be to improve society. How we act and what we do should always be measured by the highest standards. We have a responsibility of best practice to our employees, our community and the world we engage with.
Asiatan has spent years optimizing and innovating ways to minimize waste. The culmination of that effort is the Asiatan Kind Leather program. We have looked at ways throughout our supply chain and processes to minimize everything from trim, water, chemistry and time. The result is Kind Leather!
We examined the key areas of waste in our suppliers, our own and the factories to find ways to reduce every aspect of what waste is. The result is that we optimized the raw material that we receive, we minimized the amount of chemistry we use and we now provide the world's most cuttable material to our factory partners with 33% less cutting waste than traditional leather.
Asiatan leather is 100% guaranteed to come from reputable and responsible sourcing. To that end, we and our suppliers work to ensure that our raw material can be traced all the way back to the group of farms where animals were raised and those individual hides can be tracked all the way to the shoe factory.
Our supply partners employ cutting edge technologies to safeguard the origins of our hides to ensure that they come from areas that...
Our strategic sourcing leverages cutting edge technology to ensure environmental and sustainable best practices.
Hides can be traced using the JBS online tracking tool JBS360 to find the farm group, batch and date of each hide. Skins are stamped using an alphanumeric code that tracks the skin from the slaughterhouse/tannery all the way to the shoe factory.
Sustainable processes need to look at all aspects of the supply chain. You can’t just focus on one aspect and feel like the job is done. At Asiatan, we are assessing all inputs throughout the entire re-tanning and finishing process to measure the water, energy and chemical consumption and solid waste generation per square meter of finished leather.
The Government sets standards, the industry sets standards and when they are not good enough NGO’s set standards. With the government there is corruption, with the industry the bar is too low, and with NGO’s there is a verification problem because they lack power. This improvement is not internal, but external. We believe in constant improvement.
To improve you need to measure. The best measurement tool we have found is Life Cycle Assessment. LCA provides the best and most thorough means to drive improvement.
The Higg Index helps us assess performance across seven environmental impact areas. From water use to chemicals management, we can use the Higg FEM to measure impacts holistically and make annual improvements.
FSLM tool has been used to assess and measure the social and labor performance. The current score for health & safety is 97.8. We set a target to improve this number by 5% by 2025. In 2023, our facility improved the section score for health & safety management in the Higg Facility Social& Labor Module (FSLM) by 18% compared to baseline 2021 and through leadership engagement and support.
Material development is not just about fashion and performance. It is about consistency, delivery, and service.
Asiatan/TecTuff are committed to giving back to society. Wherever we make money we give money back. Whoever makes the money gives the money back. Our office people, our technicians, our factory people, our buying people, and our selling people all are involved in charitable giving. We make giving back to society personal and meaningful.
We believe in supporting the local communities where we work. To do this we give back to the community where our factory is located in Jiangmen. Our local managers and employees work with the government of Jiangmen to identify the poorest in the community and we support them with food, cooking oil and financial help.
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