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Tanning hide into leather might already seem like a sound way to use more of the animal in our lives, after meat and other products. Reality is, tanning typically produces its own considerable waste — scrap that can spend years in a landfill.
Gen Phoenix, a U.K-based global company that’s been a longtime producer of sustainable recycled leather, turns that waste into feedstock, essentially a raw material that after special processing is rolled into manufacturing-sized bolts of leather.
And its durability has been tested — tushy tested, in fact. The15-year-old company, formerly known as ELeather, maintains partnerships in the mass transportation industry, covering the seats for over 250 airline, rail and bus customers.
Now, Gen Phoenix is going to help a luxury automaker and big names in the fashion industry with their environmental goals.
The company on Thursday announced $18 million in a new funding round. The investment was led by venture capital firm Material Impact, with participation from Dr. Martens
DOCMF,
InMotion Ventures, the venture capital arm of Jaguar Land Rover, and Tapestry
TPR,
the parent of lifestyle brands that include Coach, Stuart Weitzman and Kate Spade. The funding round also includes existing investors ETF Partners and the Hermes GPE Environmental Innovation Fund.
“We were all about circularity when it wasn’t yet a buzzword. And we can do it at scale,” John Kennedy, CEO of Gen Phoenix told MarketWatch.
A circular economy is a model of production and consumption, which involves sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling existing materials and products for as long as possible.
Read: Better than recycling? These manufacturers are taking part in a ‘circular economy’
Through a revolutionary circular process, Gen Phoenix rescues leather offcuts destined for landfill, turns them into a feedstock, and regenerates them into a premium recycled leather material.
Gen Phoenix
Kenny Wilson, CEO of Dr. Martens, said in a statement that his brand aims to integrate more sustainable and traceable materials “without compromising
quality, style, comfort or durability.”
Dr. Martens has said it wants all of its footwear to be made from sustainable materials and for its manufacturing to operate at net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.
Gen Phoenix’s sustainable recycled leather has been used on over 4 million seat covers worldwide, and has saved over 8,000 tons of leather waste from landfill.
Gen Phoenix
Gen Phoenix also looks to leverage its new funding into new ways of applying the company’s patented technology, which has the capacity to produce 6 million square meters of material per year out of the company’s recently built facility. From here, Gen Phoenix wants to create next-generation materials at scale, using post-industrial and post-consumer waste, leather offcuts and plant-based feedstock.
“I think it’s obvious to all of us when you look at where society is going and particularly the Gen Z generation really care about provenance,” Kennedy told MarketWatch.
“They want to understand about traceability and responsibility so that they can consume in a responsible way and I think that, for us, at least the circularity story, there’s enough stuff in the world today,” he said. “So what we’re about is how can we reimagine how all this stuff can be reused, rather than going to landfill or somewhere else.”
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