A Combined Economic-Environmental Assessment of an Innovative Chemical Formulation for Waterproofing Applications in the Leather Manufacturing Industry

Industry is proven to be one of the most contributing sectors in terms of soil and water degradation, water and energy consumption, emission of greenhouse gases, and other polluting compounds. Hence, sustainability issues of industrial products are gaining the increasing attention of practitioners, scientists, academia, company owners, policy and decision-makers, and other stakeholders, so much so that those issues are increasingly being placed at the centre of policy agendas and research projects, both on the local and the global scale. In a recent project, attention was focused by the authors of this paper on waterproof agents, with the aim of replacing highly environmentally damaging substances such as perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAs), which, in fact, have been included on the list of persistent organic chemicals by the Stockholm Convention. In this context, the goal of this paper was to analyse the relevant environmental and economic issues associated with an innovative silica-based formulation through application of life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC) according to the specialized standards and technical guidelines. This study is conducted in the field of those projects to contribute to enhancing the literature and the knowledge on the important need for implementing sustainable, innovative paths of producing chemical compounds and products for usage in the leather manufacturing industry. Through their study, the authors highlighted that the major environmental and economic hotspots stay in the production of the raw-material requirements for waterproof formulations, which demands priority in the identification of the improvement potentials. Doing so can make it possible for the company to understand, already on the lab-scale dimension, where and how innovation solutions can be effective in enhancing the economic and environmental sustainability of its chemical products. This paper also represents the first step towards sustainable material solutions to replace PFAs, thereby favouring greening not only of the chemical industry but also of the leather manufacturing industry.