What Europe’s designer handbags are costing the Amazon rainforest

Prized for its ‘accessible’ luxury handbags at €300-600 a bag, Coach has recently risen through the ranks to become the world’s fifth-most popular fashion brand. The company has been taking European markets by storm, thanks to a rebranding strategy focused on sustainability and the ethical Gen Z consumer. But this new image conceals a darker truth: Earthsight’s investigation reveals the brand’s leather supply chain is exposed to illegal deforestation and violations of Indigenous land rights in the Brazilian Amazon. 

By analysing thousands of shipment records, data on Brazil’s cattle sector, court rulings, satellite imagery, and carrying out interviews and undercover work, Earthsight investigators have connected leather used by Coach’s direct suppliers to cattle slaughtered by Frigol, a Brazilian meatpacking giant with an egregious record of cattle purchases linked to environmental and Indigenous rights abuses. One of these suppliers confirmed to our undercover investigators that the leather it supplies to Coach comes from Brazil.

Some other luxury brands have forsworn all use of Brazilian leather and put in place traceability systems and scientific tests to ensure their products are not linked to deforestation. But Coach provided no evidence to suggest it has any system in place for avoiding such risks, and its supply chains are in danger of contamination as a result. Coach did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Earthsight’s investigation. 

Cattle laundering and Indigenous rights violations

Pará state makes up 1.25 million km² of the Brazilian Amazon, earning its capital Belém the reputation as a ‘gateway’ to the biome and the role of host for COP30, the UN Climate Change Conference to be held in late 2025. The event will mark the first time the critical climate negotiations will take place within the rainforest. 

But for decades, Pará has also been at the centre of the Amazon’s destruction. Between 2001 and 2024, Pará experienced the highest forest loss of all Brazilian states, with 18.6 million hectares (ha) deforested – an area almost twice the size of Portugal. Clearance is often illegal: between August 2023 and July 2024, 91 per cent of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon was carried out without authorisation.

Agribusiness is the main culprit. According to research by environmental NGO Imazon, over 90 per cent of deforested areas in the Brazilian Amazon are cleared to make way for cattle ranching. The hides of vast numbers of Brazil’s cattle herd are used to produce leather, boosting the profitability of cattle ranching and helping to shape the slaughtering industry. Roughly 80 per cent of Brazil’s leather is exported to international markets.      

As deforestation rates in the biome fall to a nine-year low and progress on halting the loss of the Amazon is rightly celebrated, illegal cattle ranching nonetheless continues, driving destruction, encroaching on Indigenous lands and fuelling conflict and human rights abuses. Record forest fires in 2024, largely driven by agriculture, destroyed almost 2 million ha of rainforest, threatening to undo recent progress.

In 2024, the Brazilian Federal Prosecutor’s Office uncovered a scheme to falsify animal transport permits (GTAs) to conceal the origins of cattle raised illegally within the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory in southern Pará. 

Stretching across 7738km² in the municipality of São Félix do Xingu, Apyterewa is the ancestral land of the Parakanã Indigenous People and one of Brazil’s most egregious cases of deforestation in recent years. Decades of invasions by land grabbers looking to exploit Apyterewa has made it the most heavily deforested Indigenous land in the Brazilian Amazon, with 476km² of its forests cleared between 2008 and 2023 – an area larger than New York City. As land grabbing surged during Bolsonaro’s government, Apyterewa saw more deforestation than any other Indigenous territory in Brazil for four consecutive years. Cattle ranching in an Indigenous Territory is illegal under Brazilian law. See box, 'What do we mean by illegal ranching?'

After an extensive investigation involving property searches, analyses of land titles and bank records, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office found that from 2012 to 2022, 47,200 cattle were illegally raised inside Apyterewa in Pará. Civil lawsuits were filed by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office against 33 ranchers and two companies accused of purchasing cattle from farms inside the territory. The cases are ongoing.

Earthsight analysed data on the ranchers targeted by the lawsuits and found that between 2020 and 2023, over 40 per cent of them supplied cattle to Frigol plants in Pará. Frigol is one of Brazil’s five largest meatpackers with a slaughtering capacity of 2400 cattle per day across its facilities in the state. Data on Brazil’s cattle sector show these ranchers in Pará sold over 17,000 heads of cattle to Frigol during this period, enough to produce 425 tonnes of hides.

Due to differences in the time periods covered by Earthsight’s and the Federal Prosecutor’s investigations, the data do not allow us to determine exactly how many Apyterewa-origin cattle could have been among those that these ranches sold to Frigol. As we will see however, Frigol cannot be sure either. Symptomatic of the broader problem of a lack of transparency within Brazil’s cattle sector, the company does not trace most of its indirect suppliers, leaving its supply chain exposed to the widespread threat of 'cattle laundering’ – the practice of moving cows from illegal farms to ‘clean’ farms before selling them on to slaughterhouses.

This is not the first time that Frigol has sourced cattle from suppliers linked to illegal ranching in Apyterewa. In May 2024, the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) published research showing cattle raised within Apyterewa were transported to farms outside the territory before being sold to Frigol slaughterhouses. Between 2020 and early 2023, a farm called Sítio 2 Irmãs received cattle from seven illegal farms within Apyterewa territory. Two thirds of the more than 23,000 cattle it sold during this period went to Frigol facilities.

Frigol contested EIA’s findings, and when contacted by Earthsight about its suppliers stated it has taken no further action against Sítio 2 Irmãs, claiming no wrongdoing at the farm. This indicates Frigol may still be purchasing cattle from Sítio 2 Irmãs, despite the farm’s clear links to Apyterewa.

In its response to our findings, Frigol highlighted that its procurement policy is in line with a monitoring protocol for sourcing cattle developed by NGO Imaflora and Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office. The company states that this ensures that 100 per cent of the cattle it purchases from its direct suppliers, including from Sítio 2 Irmãs, were raised in compliance with socio-environmental criteria. 

However, the protocol does not cover indirect suppliers. Frigol told us it monitors 100 per cent of its Tier 1 indirect suppliers through a traceability platform called Visipec. This captures only a portion of Frigol’s indirect suppliers, as cattle supply chains in Brazil frequently contain several more tiers. Moreover, Frigol said 68 per cent of cattle moving from the indirect suppliers it checked were found to be compliant with its requirements. Frigol did not provide detail on these requirements, but company documents indicate they align with the Indirect Suppliers Working Group for Brazilian Ranching (GTFI) Standard, which includes criteria related to deforestation, embargoes, slave labour, and invasion of Indigenous Territories among others. Frigol’s response therefore suggests one-third of cattle from its Tier 1 suppliers did not meet these requirements.

Ranching in embargoed land

Also in 2024, Operation ‘Cold Meat 2’ saw agents at Brazil’s environment agency (Ibama) sift through thousands of GTAs to trace 18,000 cattle to illegally deforested lands in the Amazon. Spanning 26,000ha – an area more than twice the size of San Francisco – these lands are spread over 69 properties across Pará and Amazonas states and embargoed in response to environmental crimes. An embargo is a punitive measure used by Ibama against producers who have illegally cleared vegetation, closing off the land to commercial use to allow it to regenerate. Ibama agents discovered cattle from the 69 properties had been sold to slaughterhouses belonging to Brazil’s major meatpackers, in flagrant violation of these embargoes. This resulted in fines of over €56 million and the seizure of nearly 9000 cattle. 

Among the companies implicated was Frigol. Freedom of Information requests submitted by Earthsight reveal that Ibama’s analysis found that Frigol had purchased 3643 cattle illegally raised on two embargoed areas in São Félix do Xingu, Pará, leading to a fine of approximately €280,000. 

Over 98 per cent of the cattle identified by Ibama agents in Frigol’s supply chain originated from just one farm – Bom Futuro. Despite an embargo on the property imposed by Ibama in 2019 for illegal deforestation, GTAs reveal that Frigol continued to source 3588 cattle from the farm between January 2020 and October 2023.

When approached for comment by Earthsight, Frigol denied that it purchased cattle raised in the two embargoed areas in São Félix do Xingu. The company challenged the findings of Ibama’s operation and stated that cattle linked to the investigation were never purchased by its slaughterhouses. Frigol argues that the fines imposed by the environmental agency were based solely on self-declared GTAs, which do not confirm actual transactions. 

It is indeed the case that GTAs are self-declaratory documents, intended for animal sanitary control and not as traceability tools. However, in the absence of alternative data sources, the inclusion of crucial information in GTAs, such as herds’ origins and destinations, mean that they are often used by NGOs and public prosecutors to track cattle supply chains in Brazil.

‘Italian’ leather’s links to Brazil   

The words ‘Italian leather’ are often synonymous with quality and luxury. Leather is considered Italian due to the tradition and expertise in Italian processing, tanning and craftmanship of leather goods, regardless of the origin of the raw hides themselves. As Earthsight’s analysis of thousands of shipment records reveals, this stamp can conceal imports of Brazilian hides from cattle raised on illegally deforested and stolen land.

Brazil is among the top three exporters of raw hides, with exports totalling €1.15 billion in 2024. Italy is the third-biggest export market for Brazilian hides and the world’s leading producer of finished leather apparel, exporting €1.19 billion worth of items in 2023. Contributing to this growth is the luxury leather sector, expected to increase in global value by around 50 per cent over the next ten years, generating billions in profits for the handful of corporations who dominate the market. 

Home to the country’s second-largest cattle herd, Pará is one of Brazil’s leading leather exporting states. By analysing available shipment records, Earthsight investigators identified 16,650 tonnes of leather exports from Pará to Europe between 2020 and 2023, with 99 per cent destined for Italy (16,516 tonnes). 

Responsible for the vast majority of these exports is Durlicouros, a Brazilian tannery that sources hides from Frigol, evidenced by the companies’ social media accounts and confirmed in a letter sent to Earthsight from Durlicouros in 2024. Durlicouros is Pará’s leading leather exporter, accounting for 90 per cent of hides shipped from the state to Italy between 2020 and 2023 (14,726 tonnes), subjecting Europe to leather products exposed to deforestation and rights violations risks in their supply chains.

Almost a quarter of Durlicouros’s leather exports from Pará to Italy were purchased by just two tanneries in Italy’s Veneto region: Conceria Cristina, owned by Gruppo Peretti, and Faeda. Both tanneries pride themselves on supplying prominent brands within the interior design, automotive and high fashion sectors.

Among these brands is Coach, known for ‘accessible’ luxury leather handbags. Conceria Cristina and Faeda both confirmed to undercover Earthsight investigators that they supply leather to Coach. Posing as interested buyers in an undercover meeting with Gruppo Peretti, our investigators were told by a Conceria Cristina representative that Coach regularly uses hides from Brazil, revealing the brand’s willingness to overlook risks of deforestation and rights violations.

'Our European market is on fire' 

Coach is the flagship brand under Tapestry, Inc. – a US-based multinational fashion group that also houses Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman. Classed as ‘entry-level’ luxury, a Coach bag fetches around €300-600. There are over 950 Coach stores in 21 countries worldwide.  

In recent years, Coach’s popularity has skyrocketed, partly attributed to a focus on the ‘sustainability generation’, Gen Z. Several of its designs have gone viral on TikTok, leading to a boom in sales: demand for Coach products year on year increased by a staggering 332 per cent in 2024. Europe is home to some of the brand’s fastest-growing markets, including the UK and France. “Our European market is on fire,” Coach CEO Todd Kahn celebrated in an interview with Vogue Business. 

But this sustainable rebrand is at odds with Coach’s sourcing choices. While it is not certain the leather in Coach’s products is from cattle reared illegally in the Amazon, its use of Brazilian leather and two suppliers with supply chains exposed to these harms risks its customers being complicit in deforestation and Indigenous rights violations.

Other brands exposed

Luxury fashion’s exposure to Brazilian leather extends beyond Coach. Fendi, owned by LVMH, Chloé and Hugo Boss all purchase leather from both Faeda and Conceria Cristina. Louis Vuitton (LVMH), Chanel, and Kering Group’s Balenciaga and Gucci, are all among Faeda’s clients. Saint Laurent, also part of Kering, is supplied by Conceria Cristina. 

Coach and Conceria Cristina did not respond to Earthsight’s requests for comment. Faeda stated that leather purchased from Durlicouros between 2020 and 2023 was not sold to any of the fashion brands it supplies, but instead to the upholstery sector. The tannery says it uses a bar code system to segregate hides by origin. 

Kering Group (Gucci, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent) told Earthsight that hides sourced from Conceria Cristina and Faeda do not come from Brazil, in line with their contractual agreements. Fendi, similarly, told us that the company monitors the origins of its sourcing and that Conceria Cristina and Faeda periodically declare that they only use leather from Europe. Fendi said it would nonetheless be conducting an investigation in response to our findings. Chanel stated that none of the hides it purchased from Faeda between 2020 and 2023 came from Brazil, in line with its policies. 

Neither Kering Group nor Fendi provided details of the methods used to verify the origins of hides, appearing to rely on the tanneries’ assurances. Critically, Chanel told us that it ended its partnership with Faeda at the beginning of 2024 because the tannery was considered to no longer meet the brand’s traceability requirements.

In response to Earthsight’s findings, Hugo Boss launched an investigation into its supply chain. The brand said it is currently onboarding its Tier 2 suppliers, including Faeda and Conceria Cristina, onto a traceability initiative that will require farm-level information on the origin of hides. However, Hugo Boss appears not to have an existing system in place to monitor and trace the origins of the leather used in its products. Only upon receiving our findings did Hugo Boss approach Conceria Cristina and Faeda to ask whether the tanneries supplied the brand with leather from Durlicouros. 

Chloé was the only company which detailed methods that could allow the brand to properly verify claims from Conceria Cristina and Faeda. It requires suppliers to provide documents such as transaction records and purchase orders to substantiate that hides originate from Europe. Chloé states it works with third-party auditors to verify traceability information from the tanneries on a monthly basis and makes use of isotopic testing to provide further verification of leathers’ origins. 

Full responses from all companies can be read here.

‘Sustainable’ leather

Some of these brands’ efforts to ensure their leather supply chains are sustainable rely mostly on purchasing leather from suppliers certified by the Leather Working Group (LWG) – a certification body that claims to assess companies’ environmental performance and traceability. As of January 2022, 77 per cent of Coach leather goods and 99 per cent of its footwear products were made with leather from certified tanneries. The brand has committed to using at least 90 per cent of its leather from tanneries rated Silver or Gold by LWG by 2025. 

Similarly, 100 per cent of Fendi’s leather is currently sourced from LWG-certified suppliers, with a target to source 90 per cent from tanneries certified with Silver or Gold ratings. Ninety-seven per cent of leather used by Louis Vuitton is sourced from LWG-certified tanneries. By 2027, Hugo Boss aims to source 100 per cent of its leather from tanneries rated at least LWG-Silver, or tanneries with comparable standards. 

However, LWG does not guarantee a sustainable, ethical or even traceable leather supply chain. Certification is only available for leather tanneries, manufacturers and traders, and therefore provides no assurances as to the environmental or social standards on slaughterhouses or cattle ranches. While LWG audits assess whether Brazilian leather can be traced back to a specific slaughterhouse, tanneries are not required to trace their supply chains to ranch level. As a result, LWG certification provides no guarantee that leather did not originate from deforested or stolen lands – even LWG itself admitted in comments to Earthsight that its certification is not intended to be interpreted in this way.

The Leather Working Group itself admitted in comments to Earthsight that its certification is not intended as a guarantee of deforestation-free leather 

Moreover, traceability is not a determining factor over a company’s rating, meaning it is possible for tanneries to receive a Gold or Silver medal without tracing their leather even as far as the slaughterhouse. Fashion brands’ targets to increase purchases from LWG-certified tanneries can therefore do little to tackle deforestation or rights violations in their supply chains where these abuses are linked to cattle ranches. In comments shared with Earthsight, Chanel said it is in recognition of LWG’s shortcomings that it carries out its own audits on its suppliers.

By affording the brands an image of sustainability, these false solutions also risk obstructing progress towards deforestation-free supply chains. They mislead consumers into believing they are making ethical purchasing choices, reducing the customer-driven pressure for brands to take meaningful action to ensure their products are free of environmental and human rights abuses. 

Given these flaws in LWG, it seems no surprise that seven of Durlicouros’s eight processing facilities across Brazil are Gold-rated, including its unit in Pará, despite the fact that its supplier Frigol was embroiled in several investigations into illegal cattle ranching in the Amazon in 2024 alone. 

Both Frigol and Durlicouros publicly profess environmental and social commitments, claiming to have robust traceability systems in place which go beyond what LWG certification demands. A closer look, however, reveals shortfalls. Frigol, for instance, declares that it provides 100 per cent traceability of cattle in all biomes in which it operates. But this extends only to direct suppliers, who sell cattle directly to Frigol’s slaughterhouses, and Tier 1 indirect suppliers, who supply Frigol’s direct suppliers. Full traceability of other indirect suppliers remains only a target. This presents a concerning gap in Frigol’s traceability, as animals are commonly bought and sold several times before going to slaughterhouses.

Durlicouros claims to have achieved end-to-end traceability of hides, including identification of cattle from birth and laser-marked codes on the hides themselves. However, given that Frigol – one of Durlicouros’s key suppliers in Pará – does not monitor all of its indirect suppliers, it is unclear how Durlicouros could ensure that the leather the company sources is free of deforestation or rights violations.

When contacted by Earthsight, Durlicouros told us that its operations comply with Brazilian laws and responsible sourcing practices and affirmed its commitment to traceability and responsible leather sourcing. However, the company declined to answer Earthsight’s questions regarding the traceability of the hides it sources from Frigol. Frigol told Earthsight its cattle purchases meet socio-environmental criteria for direct suppliers in line with a monitoring protocol for sourcing cattle from the Amazon biome developed with Brazil’s Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, but failed to address its ability to trace its indirect suppliers beyond Tier 1.

LWG stated it was unable to comment on Earthsight’s findings and instead outlined its certification standard, confirming that its traceability requirement covers only the ability of certified producers to trace hides back to slaughterhouse.

The opacity and complexity of Brazil’s cattle supply chains have been known for years. Companies dealing in Brazilian leather have neglected their responsibility to combat these issues for too long. Full traceability of indirect cattle suppliers is achievable, but corporations and certification schemes have preferred to paper over these current problems rather than address them.

Europe’s action on tainted imports

The past few decades have seen companies leave a trail of devastation across the world’s biomes and a string of failed commitments to clean up their supply chains. In recent years, policymakers have realised that relying on voluntary measures will do nothing to combat the climate and biodiversity crises, finally introducing laws obliging companies to act.