The Upcycling Paradox, Dissecting Rhetorical Decoupling in the Global Leather Industry’s Sustainability Communication

Abstract

The leather sector faces persistent tensions over its sustainability claims. Critics associate it with livestock agriculture and chemical pollution, whereas the industry frames leather as a circular solution by upcycling agrifood byproducts into luxury materials. Viewed through the combined lenses of Paradox and Legitimacy theories, this study investigates how global leather stakeholders discursively navigate this structural tension. Adopting a qualitative, multiple-case study design of four distinct global entities, the research combines Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) and Barthesian semiotics to analyze corporate disclosures. The empirical material is supplemented by a semi-structured interview with a senior industry brand strategist to uncover the strategic intent behind these narratives. This study critically evaluates how industry stakeholders interpret and communicate structural paradoxes. Specifically, it discloses how they deploy “rhetorical upcycling” to magnify upstream waste valorization while obscuring downstream ecotoxicological processing footprints. The findings reveal that while these rhetorical strategies successfully manipulate external perception of value, they create an unsustainable decoupling of corporate image from operational realities. Consequently, this study demonstrates that corporate sustainability must transition from mere rhetorical compliance and symbolic legitimacy towards an integrated, holistic paradigm where organizations transparently articulate how they navigate inherent socio-ecological dualities within their formal disclosures.