5 Leather Alternatives, Porcini Carbonara & In Love with The World
How bio-based materials are disrupting fashion, a 'shroom spin on the Italian classic, and a monk's journey through death and rebirth (#51).
Welcome back to BRB w/ Nathan P, your 5-min weekly dose of information to inspire climate action.
Each Wednesday, you can expect💥1 Breakthrough, 🥘1 Recipe, and 📚1 Book on food & climate in your inbox.
💥 5 Leather Alternatives
The Biofabricate conference wrapped up in Paris last week and one material took the limelight: leather.
The conference teemed with near-indistinguishable imitations garnering interest from the likes of Hermès and Stella McCartney.
But let’s take a step back. Leather has been used in fashion, furniture, and automobiles for centuries thanks to its durability and timelessness. So why do we need alternatives?
Leather products are animal-based and also often petroleum-based, raising both ethical and environmental concerns. High quality alternatives can lower the impact of the material’s production and end-of-life.
Let’s dive in on the approaches to get us there. Today’s post will cover:
The Leather Dilemma
5 Promising Alternatives
Balancing Functionality & Sustainability
Scaling Challenges
1. The Leather Dilemma
Leather has a high environmental impact. One square meter of cow leather emits 110kg of CO2e (Leather Panel), more than 60% of which are from raising the animal.
However, tanning and processing the leather causes further environmental harm. According to the European Commission, 1kg of leather:
🧪 Uses 2.5kg chemicals
💧 Produces 250L waste water
🪦 Generates 6.1kg solid waste
Companies are welcoming new innovations, and Apple is removing leather from their supply chains entirely to meet its sustainability goals.
Queue the alternatives.
2. 5 Promising Alternative Leathers
Given the ubiquity and high price tag of genuine leather, highly functional replacements are an attractive target for many companies.
The 5 leather alternatives below will give you a taste of the materials and technologies out there. It is by no means an exhaustive list, as announcements on new offerings seem to come out every week.
Nubuck replacement from Ecovative. Ecovative uses solid-state fermentation, cultivating mycelium directly on grain, sawdust, and other agricultural by-products. They pioneered this technology to make myco-foam packaging used by Ikea and are expanding their suite of products.
Celium™ leather alternative from Polybion. This leather is made from bacterial cellulose when the microorganisms transform mango waste a controlled fermentation process.
New Grain™ garment leather alternative from Arda Biomaterials. This is made using brewer’s spent grain (BSG) with leather embossing techniques. Arda is able to achieve convincing textures and functionality without plastic coatings like polyurethane, an impressive feat.
MycoWorks produces Reishi™ leather through biomass fermentation in stainless steel tanks. They inaugurated a production facility in SC last year to produce millions of square meters of mycelium leather. With recently announced deals, we can expect to see Ligne Roset furniture, Hermès handbags, and even maybe GM car interiors in the near future.
Banofi produces another leather alternative from banana waste. India is #1 producer of bananas worldwide, contributing to the 100+ million tons of banana waste globally each year. Their work made judges go bananas as they took home the prestigious $1M Hultz Prize last year.
3. Functionality & Sustainability
Leather alternatives will not compete with their genuine counterparts on ethics and environment alone.
Leather replacements have to match or outperform current functionality and price. Beyond look and feel, these materials need to ensure durability, water resistance/permeability, and high tensile strength.
Some of the replacements mentioned above use non-biodegradable coatings like polyurethane to achieve desired functionality, at least in their current phase of R&D. This means that when the material breaks down at end of life, it contributes to microplastic pollution.
Ideally, leather alternatives will achieve the right functionality without using animals or fossil fuels.
4. Challenges to Scale
Genuine leather has a head start of centuries if not millennia. It will take time for alternatives to compete on price and functionality.
One of the main scaling challenges is cost.
Many companies pioneering new technologies need to build FOAKs (First-Of-A-Kind facilities) to scale production. Current methods using submerged fermentation in large stainless steel tanks are very expensive to run.
However, the fact that leading design houses like Hermès are embracing leather alternatives means that novel products are already passing a high-bar, which is encouraging.
It’s a question of time until unit costs decrease enough for mycelium- and plant-based leathers to become ubiquitous, if not the norm.
What do you think and which other alternatives would you add to the list? Let me know in the comments.
🥘 Recipe: Porcini Carbonara
Following last week’s shroom spin on quiche Lorraine, this week I swapped pork for wild mushrooms in this Italian classic.
The French didn’t come after me last time, but maybe the Italians will this week…
Here is my ‘shroom spin on carbonara. It’s made with sautéed wild porcini mushrooms (king boletes) instead of traditional “guanciale.”
Incidentally, “porcini” means “little pigs” in Italian, since the Ancient Romans referred to these as “hog mushrooms.” A fitting replacement on both taste and principle.
PS: if you make it, please send pictures!
📚 Book: In Love with the World
This book transformed my outlook on death.
In Love with the World is a moving memoir by Yongey Rinpoche, a monk who leaves the monastery to apply his meditations on love, pain, and death in real-world contexts.
He explains that we experience many cycles of death and rebirth within our lifetimes. There are 6 bardos – or transitory states – in Tibetan Buddhism: birth, dreams, meditation, death, illumination, and becoming.
In this philosophy, “death” takes on a broader meaning than what happens to our physical bodies at the end of life. “Death” is the transitions that enable constant change and life itself. Our cells die so that others may regenerate.
In a metaphysical sense, we must also let “die” our attachments to behaviors and possessions that no longer serve us. We must accept the death of previous identities so that new ones may develop.
In ecosystems, the life of many organisms is interconnected with the death of others. Humans, too, are part of this material and energy flux. We are all one. And we must ensure our tools and products can be as well. Our creations should be designed to last, not to be immortal.
If you read this book, I’d love to hear your thoughts and discuss.
My favorite quotes as food for thought:
“The biggest challenge to accepting the constancy of death and rebirth lies with our resistance to impermanence, and our hopeless attempts to hold in place what inherently changes.”
“Fifty to seventy billion cells in our bodies die every day, allowing for billions of new cells to take fleeting existence. Life occurs on an ocean of death. Without death there is no life.”
“When you become one with everything, you can do anything. You are capable of boundless love and compassion, and can manifest in ways that can benefit other beings. Don't forget. Your human form is right now – just as you are a reflection of enlightenment – form-body reflecting emptiness.”
Thank you for reading – BRB next week ✌️
About Me
Hi there! My name is Nathan Paumier – I’m a climate optimist, food enthusiast, and avid reader.
My mission is to make it fun, easy, and delicious to make more sustainable decisions.
I started this newsletter after frequent questions on food tech, reading recommendations, and my secret recipes.
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