In five years, DriTan™ drastically reduces the amount of water needed to tan leathers, allowing tanneries to become sustainable in their production. Although the DriTan™ technology of this Netherlands company allows for a savings in water equal to around 20 litres of water for every hide tanned, the leathers are indistinguishable from those tanned using traditional means, offering the same quality, features, stability, and lead time. With the intent of presenting this radical technology in its Fall/Winter 2019-20 collection, ECCO created a version of the iconic ECCO SOFT 8 sneaker that uses DriTan™ tanned leather.

For the moment, ECCO Leather is applying DriTan™ technology to all of its tanning processes, but its real aim is to share this technology with the entire tanning industry on a global level.

“Actually, DriTan™ is only the first step in our ambitious project dedicated to eliminating the use of water from the entire leather production cycle” – commented Thomas Gøgsig, Head of Applied Research.