A Source Of Pride

From leading a company that has grown from five people to more than 1,750 to being one of the world’s top eco-friendly leather manufacturers, founder and executive chairman of Isa Tantec Thomas Schneider has plenty of things to be proud of.

- Ashton Kobler

When ISA TanTec started in 1993, it was a small factory with five people. It has grown exponentially and today employs 1,750 people across five tanneries. “This is big in our industry,” Founder and Executive Chairman Thomas Schneider says. “The idea behind our company was to create something sustainable. To create something that will leave a footprint in the tanning and the leather industry. That was my target, and I think we achieved that target.”

As a shoe-leather business, the company focuses on two main areas: outdoor performance, which includes brands such as Timberland and The North Face; and polished leather dress shoes such as Clarks. “We are mainly operating in outdoor performance, where we are the largest in the world to date,” Thomas says.

LITE CONCEPT

Twenty years ago, customers such as Adidas and Nike came to ISA TanTec asking for environmentally friendly leather. The company had to figure out how to make a low impact on the environment. It had to control each step in the process, from electricity to water consumption. Thus, LITE (Low Impact To the Environment) was born.

According to the company’s website, LITE provides “customers with the knowledge of carbon and water footprint usage for each of the leathers we create; giving customers the ability to choose the product that is the most environmentally friendly, and with the lowest footprint”.

“When someone buys our leather, it’s like buying a refrigerator, where you get an energy guide on it,” Thomas explains. “We declare, for every square metre of leather, an energy guide, and water guide. In the past 15 years, this has been well adopted. We have 12 brands now co-marketing with us.