Following the good results of the Skills4Smart TCLF Blueprint project, its partners wanted to give it continuity and to keep making progress in the digital upskilling of the textile, clothing, leather and footwear (TCLF) sectors with a new proposal, Metaskills4TCLF.

The aim of the Metaskills4TCLF project is to keep taking steps to face the challenges of the digital era within a framework of transition towards a greener economy in the textile, clothing, leather and footwear sectors, with the development of new curricula and teaching materials with innovative content, learning tools and training in virtual reality. The project's purpose is to incorporate digital metaverse technologies in order to improve training and talent.

The new Metaskills4TCLF is funded by the European Commission's Erasmus+ programme with 4 million euros, involves 36 partners from 11 different countries and runs for four years.

In this European project, A3 Leather Innovation Center – UdL, together with other European knowledge centres, is responsible for organising the course content, while Leather Cluster Barcelona contributes to the dissemination and promotion of the project's results.

In parallel, the Metaskills4TCLF project is developing a communication plan with the publication of articles to inform society about different aspects of the textile, clothing, leather and footwear industries.

In this regard, Leather Cluster Barcelona is also collaborating with Metaskills4TCLF by writing content to highlight leather and its industry as a benchmark of Circular Economy and Sustainable Fashion.

The first of these articles deals with the origin of leather and explains why leather is considered a precedent of the Circular Economy.

Leather is a by-product, a consequence of the consumption of meat, the main source of protein for more than 90% of the world's population. The leather industry recovers and recycles this by-product so that it does not become waste and revalues it into elegant, noble products that are useful to society, whose durability contributes to sustainability.

One of the pillars of the Circular Economy is that all waste should have a second useful life as new raw materials. In this regard, for many centuries the leather sector has recovered a by-product of the food sector and recycled it so that it can be reused as a sustainable consumer good with high added value.

The article explores the origins and the processes involved in the creation of leather, tracing its journey from raw material to finished product and shedding light on why leather remains the preferred sustainable option for most consumers around the world, and why it should continue to be so in a world where plastic has had such a devastating impact on the Planet in just a few decades, whereas leather, which has accompanied humanity since its beginnings, has proved to be far more environmentally friendly thanks to its compostability and biodegradability.

You can read the full article on the blog of the Metaskills4TCLF project.

Leather Cluster Barcelona is an environment of competitive cooperation for promoting cross-cutting, transformative strategic projects with the aim of driving the ecosystem of the Catalan leather sector and its value chain within the framework of Shared Value policies. The cluster is an entity accredited under the Catalonia Clusters programme and is supported by Acció.