Leather Working Group (LWG) Certification: What Tanneries Need to Prepare
LWG certification, run by the Leather Working Group, is an environmental (and increasingly social) audit for leather manufacturers, and it's the credential most buyers in footwear, automotive and fashion supply chains ask tanneries for by name. Certification is earned by passing an audit against the Leather Manufacturer Standard, currently Audit Protocol P7, which covers 17 sections and combines pass/fail threshold requirements with a weighted scoring system. This article breaks down what the standard actually covers, how the audit and medal system work, and what to prepare before booking one.
What is the Leather Working Group?
The Leather Working Group is a multi-stakeholder, not-for-profit organisation that certifies environmental compliance and performance in leather manufacturing. Its certification scheme has become the reference point buyers in leather-using industries look for when checking a tannery's environmental credentials, and increasingly its social practices too, since recent versions of the standard extend into worker health and safety and governance in addition to the traditionally environmental focus.
What the Leather Manufacturer Standard covers
The current protocol, P7, first introduced in 2005 and updated to its P7 version in 2021 with revisions continuing through 2025, is organised into 17 sections. These span traceability of raw material, chemical management, energy consumption, water consumption, air and noise emissions, waste management, effluent treatment, environmental management systems, and, in the newer sections, social auditing covering worker health and safety, and governance.
Each section is assessed two ways. Threshold questions set minimum pass/fail requirements a tannery has to meet regardless of anything else, while the remaining questions in each section are weighted and scored, and that score is what determines the medal rating a facility receives.
How the medal rating works
A tannery that completes an LWG audit is rated Gold, Silver, Bronze or Audited, based on its weighted score across the standard's sections, provided it has also cleared the threshold requirements. Audited is the rating given to a facility that completed the audit but didn't reach the scoring level needed for a Bronze medal or above. LWG's published materials don't set out the specific percentage thresholds that separate each medal tier, so rather than estimate a cutoff, the accurate way to describe it is that the rating is determined by the facility's overall weighted score against the standard, assessed by the auditor at the time of certification.
Other LWG standards, briefly
The Leather Manufacturer Standard is the one that applies to tanneries themselves, but LWG maintains three related standards for other roles in the supply chain: the Leather Trader Standard, a pass/fail "Approved" rating for trading companies; the Commissioning Manufacturer Standard, which uses the same medal system for brands and companies that commission leather production without operating their own tannery; and the Subcontractor Standard, a pass/fail "Audited" rating for facilities that perform a specific process on behalf of a certified tannery. If your company sits in one of these other roles rather than operating a tannery directly, the standard that applies to you is a different one from what's covered here.
Certification validity and reassessment
LWG certification is valid for 24 months from the date of audit, with one exception: a tannery's first audit, where only one year of environmental data is available to assess, is certified for 12 months rather than the full 24, before moving to the standard two-year cycle on reassessment.
Who conducts the audit
Certification is independently managed by LWG Assurance Services (LWG AS), a separate not-for-profit entity set up specifically to keep certification impartial from LWG's other activities. Tanneries arrange their formal audit directly through LWG AS once they're ready.
What to prepare before an audit
Given the standard's structure, the areas most worth having documentation ready for are raw material traceability records, a chemical inventory showing restricted substance compliance, energy and water consumption data, environmental management system documentation, effluent treatment and monitoring records, and, for the newer sections of the standard, worker health and safety systems and governance documentation. Since scoring is weighted across 17 sections rather than pass/fail overall, gaps in any one section affect the medal outcome even where the tannery clears every threshold requirement.
Before booking a formal audit, LWG offers a free self-assessment tool, Tannery of the Future, that mirrors the structure of the Leather Manufacturer Standard and is worth completing first to identify where preparation is still needed.
→ See: LWG Tannery of the Future: What the Self-Assessment Covers Before Your Formal Audit
Not sure where your tannery stands against the standard?
Seventeen sections of threshold requirements and weighted scoring is a lot to work through cold. If you'd like a hand mapping your current documentation against the standard before you book an audit, get in touch and we can talk through where the gaps are likely to be.
Frequently asked questions
What is LWG certification?
It's an environmental and social audit certification for leather manufacturers, run by the Leather Working Group. Tanneries are assessed against the Leather Manufacturer Standard, currently Audit Protocol P7, covering 17 sections, and receive a Gold, Silver, Bronze or Audited rating.
How long is LWG certification valid for?
24 months from the date of audit, except for a tannery's first-ever audit, which is certified for 12 months because only one year of environmental data is available, before moving to the standard two-year cycle.
What's the difference between a Bronze medal and an Audited rating?
Audited means the tannery completed the audit but didn't reach the weighted score needed for a Bronze medal or above. LWG's published materials don't specify the exact percentage thresholds separating each tier.
Who runs the LWG audit?
LWG Assurance Services (LWG AS), a separate not-for-profit entity created to manage certification independently and impartially from LWG's other activities.