Home - Ecotan

natural leather tanning

Shift to Biocircular

Developed together with some of the world’s best tanneries, Ecotan is the first truly biocircular leather tanning formulation with a proven path back to nature.

Birth

Ecotan formulations start with nature using plant-based tannins that are extracted simply and using sustainably sourced resources. Silvateam has applied human ingenuity to combine tannins with harmless manmade biocircular polimers to create something entirely new.

Life

Our nature-based approach results in leathers that match and exceed the performance bar set by chrome and glutaraldehyde tanning, while avoiding dangerous ingredients. The result is a tanning system that is safe, green and clean. Nature, improved.

Next life

Ecotan tanning formulations are biocircular, designed to seamlessly integrate with the leather they are combined with. The leathers resulting from this technology can be repurposed for multiple paths of second life, for instance as fertilizer for organic farming, ultimately returning to nature.

you can make a difference

Be the game
changer

It's time for something different that’s better for us and the Planet. Make your leather items 100% safe, durable and reusable.

Start your project Read more

nature's gifts + human ingenuity

No one does it like Ecotan

Once recycled into an organic fertilizer, Ecotan leather becomes part of an infinite loop seamlessly merged with nature’s cycle. In a circular economy the value of products and materials is maintained for as long as possible. What has previously been considered waste is now a resource that can be reused and reintroduced into the production cycle. Biocircular thinking takes this a step further by employing materials that start and end with nature.

Materials Technology End-product

Nature is our partner

As by-products of the food industry, animal skins left untreated rapidly start to decompose. In order to counteract this process, humans repurposed plant tannins, natural molecules which are used by plants to protect themselves against microbial attack.

We use these harmless and sustainable raw materials as primary ingredients in all Ecotan products.

Genuine leather at its best

Forget about leather surrogates, whose sustainability is questionable as they often contain petroleum. Thanks to Ecotan’s formulations, today genuine leather becomes fully biocircular and performs better than syntethics since it’s more durable, comfortable and healthy.

Fashion, automotive, interior design: Ecotan leather can be confidently used in all these industries.

We changed
the rules

Developed by Silvateam technologists over the last five years, Ecotan is a disruptive technology in tanning industry: we managed to match the performance of chrome and glutaraldehyde tanned leather without using harmful substances both for end users and the environment.

The world’s first biocircular leather is proven safe and sustainable.

TANNIN PLANTS

Natural tannins are sourced from different plants, present either in bark, leaves, wood, fruits or roots.

Chestnut
wood

Quebracho
wood

Tara
pods

Gall
nut

Olive
pruning

Explore our partners

Go to tanneries

Over 40 of the top tanneries in the world - chosen for size and quality - have joined the project and are ready to supply Ecotan leathers. They span, among others, from Italy to France, Portugal, Turkey, India, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Pakistan, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.