Considering that the technological process is constantly increasing, and changes are made in all industries, the leather industry also encountered challenges that were overcome. The leather industry, in the face of the current difficulties, seeks to maintain within the European Union, its trend and the technical knowledge acquired. Technological advances provide this industry with tools capable of improving the yield, quality, and speed of cost recovery. For this subsector of the national economy to be competitive, it must identify, assimilate, and exploit the latest and most modern technologies. Romania has once an important competitor in the Europe market and in this paper, we are presenting an overview of the leather industry in Romania since it can play a very important role in the country’s economy. Thus, this work presents aspects encountered at the level of the leather industry in Romania such as number of producers in the leather industry, evolution of the number of Romanian tanning and leather companies, evolution of labor productivity in companies in the leather and substitutes industry, number of footwear manufacturing companies, top 5 players on the footwear market. These aspects were obtained by the authors through their own processing of the data provided by Statistics.

The REWEART project will help meet the objectives of the EU’s Environmental Policy. What is more, it will contribute to the implementation of EU commitments under UNFCCC Kyoto Protocol, EU GHG emission reduction commitments in 2020 under the Climate and Energy Package, Green Deal and Fashion Pact. Following the objectives of resource and energy reduction as well as waste cuts all along the product life cycle, the main ambition of REWEART project is to refer to natural ecosystems, which produces no waste, and uses only renewable resources (solar energy and water). REWEART project aims at generalising the use of proactive waste management at design stage and at anticipating and improving reactive management. The project offers us an exceptional opportunity to conceive a new business model and related services and tools, enabling, at design stage, the selection of the most suitable materials and processes to create a new footwear product 100% recycled, organic, as working hypothesis. A cost effectiveness evaluation has been made possible to make affordable new products available to the market, while a concurrent environmental impact analysis ensures that the new solutions are positive for the environment. The project results have been assessed against a set of performance yardsticks addressing environmental, social and economic impact. This paper presents the activities carried out within the LIFE REWEART project during its entire period of development.

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The ECODESIGN concept, which has appeared since the early 1960s, plays a fundamental role in the life cycle of a fashion product, from design, production, service life to recycling. The main vectors of ECODESIGN are guided in several directions: the selection of materials and their impact on production - non-toxic natural fiber materials will be used, recyclable rubber, all obtained with low energy consumption; designing models and making samples - these will be produced from material obtained by recycling used textile fibers with a high durability and low weight; production - the aim is to optimize the production process, replacing toxic auxiliary materials with natural ones (natural rubber, water-based adhesives), identification and elimination of toxic emissions, as well as the use of unconventional, solar and wind energy; packaging - it will be made of recycled vegetable fibers and will be designed in such a way as to protect the product as well as possible without damaging it. All these vectors will contribute to extending the “life” of the product, offering comfort, durability and eco-efficiency.

The negative impact on the environment caused by the current production of over 23,000 million pairs of shoes each year, either due to the consumption of huge quantities of raw materials or due to the thousands of tons of waste generated, is a sufficient reason to conceive a new type of shoe making process. The predominant manufacturing methods and the many components that the shoe contains make it impossible to recycle, due to the high complexity involved in separating materials. Once they reach the end of their life cycle, they inevitably end up in a landfill, generating a large amount of waste. REWEART is a footwear manufacturing project that is capable of producing sustainable goods based on a circular economy, co-financed by the European Commission through the LIFE program. REWEART aims to make vegan shoes with accessories made from recycled and organic materials, with 90% less energy and almost zero waste. REWEART wants to provide a tool to avoid the generation of waste in footwear consumption and to offer the footwear industry an alternative model of circular production to reduce energy consumption and to stop the destructive and unsustainable production of footwear.