The White Industry from Korea highlights the benefits of the made in Italy green technology
Sustainable fashion is trendy and destined to be the future challenge. Thus, the collaboration between Ecotan and Korean White Industry was born to develop a new sustainable leather collection.
Change is coming. Sustainability is now widely regarded as the next big revolution. For the environment and society, that’s a very good thing but it adds extra pressure on companies tasked with owning sustainability. While enterprises grapple to hit their compliance and risk management goals, they are also under pressure to develop sustainable consumer products, services, and responsible social engagement. White Industry is an innovative company to all intents and purposes. For this reason, Andy Kang and Hee-Seong Kim, Directors of the Korean company, have decided to prepare themselves to face the greatest challenge of the future, to be truly sustainable. Through the partnership with Silvateam and choosing Ecotan, the innovative tanning technology to create recyclable leather according to a new standard of sustainability, they are making the difference. “We know that vegetable-tanned leather represents the highest quality, durability, and beauty in leather goods, – the White said – but Ecotan is a step forward as it’s aimed at reducing the environmental impact of tanning and offering an effective solution to the waste problem. In fact, at the end of their useful life cycle, the Ecotan leather can be recycled through a hydrolysis process into a fertilizer for organic farming”.
Please, tell us shortly about the history of your company.
Mr. Kang: “We are a leather tannery founded in 2003 year by current CEO Tong Han Yoon. The location is 50km from centre of Seoul and takes just an hour’s drive distance from Seoul. We have been supplying for years vegetable tanned leather for handbag & shoe of global fashion brands with 2 million square feet capacity yearly. To briefly explain our company, it is a sound & solid company that our CEO always describes as focused on environmental sustainability and responsibility for our society”.
What are your reference markets and how much does export weighs compared to the domestic market?
Mr. Hee-Seong: “White Industry has a unique business model over other tanneries in the Far East since it exports more than 90% of its capacity. There are some steady and considerable volume consumers in the domestic market, but we feel that the export market has a much higher premium potential when it comes to growth for our products”.
What are your excellences/key selling points?
Mr. Kang: “Our excellence is the advanced development power. Our Top management team constantly tells our R&D team that development is the key to survive in this field as a major management policy. We always support our development team with new equipment and updated facilities to deliver better working condition as well as send all our R&D technicians to almost all exhibitions so that they can find inspiration to develop new products. Another important excellence is price innovation. White Industry R&D teams are doing their best to upgrade the existing articles and make them competitive globally by using new up-to-date technologies. I’d like to say that our key selling points are innovation and price competitiveness”.
Creativity and fashion: what do they mean to you?
Mr. Hee-Seong: “As you know, leather markets are too saturated by similar articles presented to the same customers, a situation which eventually leads to endless price competitions like a chicken game that we are not interested in. Therefore, White Industry is striving to provide more efforts on creativity and is campaigning development events in every quarter, also thru exhibitions. If you have, for instance, a chance to visit global fashion brands in New York, you may find there are a series of new development collections submitted by White Industry with our name on. This means we are always upfront when it comes to innovative materials”.
Focus topic of the fashion world is sustainability of processes and products: how do you break it down in your business?
Mr. Hee-Seong: “Sustainability hasn’t had a long history in terms of processes and we are still in the learning stage. Thanks to Silvateam’s support in and out, White Industry has achieved an astonishing result registering our Monaco Vege in development line up, tested and proven for its complete recyclability. Nowadays many customers are asking for it, but it seems that they are still defining their sustainability metrics and communication model. We, together with Silvateam, are able to support brands in this stage and help them build their green credentials around topics such as biobased leather materials, biocircularity and reduce carbon footprint”.
Do you have a sustainability report? What sustainability metrics do you prioritize?
Mr. Kang: “We got a LWG Gold rate and we are implementing some sustainability management activities. For instance, we are training our workers by ISO14001 environmental management system. Currently, we just set up the internal sustainability targets, such as reducing the use of chemicals in favour of natural ingredients and reducing waste by 15% compared to last year”.
How did you learn about Ecotan?
Mr. Kang: “We have been working on making eco-friendly products since 2019 and have been looking for such programs. There have been lots of meetings and have done lots of trial to make eco-friendly articles. However, most of them were not satisfactory. Meanwhile, one of our customers introduced Ecotan firstly and we contacted Silvateam. Once we received their briefing, all my team judged it as the best available program and we also think it fits well our manufacture line. For this reason, we are very happy and satisfied with Ecotan technology.
What are the advantages of using this process?
Mr. Hee-Seong: “In my thoughts, leather making has already been a huge contribution to the nature of sustainability without realizing it. It is not a recycle but upcycle of the by-products! Ecotan process is even a plus because it ensures sustainability at work in both manufacturing process and after use”.
What is the aspect you appreciate most about Ecotan?
Mr. Kang: “We think that the most attractive and highly valued part of Ecotan is the fact it is perfectly biocircular and takes resources back to nature. We believe that Ecotan is a really good concept also because it generates no harm and hazard to our society and the environment. Once again, perfect biocircularity is a highly appreciated part of the Ecotan green model”.
What developments do you imagine for the future? The so called “next steps”
Mr. Kang: “The next step would be to replicate the current line ups using the Ecotan technology, thus adopting the system on large industrial scale. This means not only achieving expectations in terms of look and feel but also providing consumers with a great biocircular leather solution which contributes to reducing the CO2 emissions”.
Ecotan is a brand by Silvateam, the Italian Group leader in the production of plant-based extracts, among others chestnut tannins.
Andy Kang and Hee-Seong Kim, Directors of the Korean company White Industry