In a world where nothing can be hidden, we better have nothing to hide.

World Leather launched an important series of articles under the title Nothing to Hide. It will run for several years and the material will be released free of charge, under an open-source agreement, for journalists, universities and companies all over the world to use.

This is a world in which nothing can be hidden, so organisations that want to prosper have to make sure they have nothing to hide. The phrase comes from Greg Page, the chief executive of Cargill, in a speech about the his company’s main area of business, producing and marketing food. It can just as easily apply to the leather industry today.

Nothing to Hide is a collection of hard-hitting essays that explain different aspects of the science, technology and ecology that underpin the modern leather industry. All contributors are respected authorities in industry and academia.

Incorrect and obsolete information about the leather industry continues to be published or broadcast on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, even in reports from respected organisations, including the World Bank and the FAO. Campaign groups, often with anti-leather agendas, have used this material to further damage perceptions of the leather industry. The Nothing to Hide collection is designed to combat this head-on by sharing accurate, up-to-date information and explanations of how and why tanners and their upstream suppliers work the way they do. The best in the industry have nothing to hide; they have much to be proud of, as this series proves.

Nothing to Hide will serve as a reservoir of facts and knowledge that the entire global leather industry will be able to draw on to respond objectively to criticism and to increase consumers’ awareness of the naturalness and value of leather.