The Future of Plant Leather: Can Next-Gen Materials Survive the Sustainability Crunch?

Plant-based leather and next-generation biomaterials could be the future of sustainable fashion. Developed to replace animal leather and fossil-fuel synthetics, these materials promise dramatically lower emissions, fewer chemicals, and supply chains built for circularity.

Today, the UK and European landscape includes pioneers working with mycelium, food-waste fibres, biopolymers, and cellulose-based alternatives. Startups like Biophilica sit at the centre of this ecosystem.

And yet despite clear consumer appetite for sustainable materials and the government’s net-zero by 2050 strategy, the industry is at a crossroads. We recently spoke with Mira Nameth, CEO and Co-Founder of Biophilica, to give us an expert’s insight into what’s happening in the industry, driven by her concern for the entire fashion industry meeting imminent regulations

First off, what is plant leather?

Plant leather is a broad category of next-generation materials designed to replace traditional animal leather using plant-based feedstocks instead of animal hides or petroleum-derived plastics.

While different companies use different formulations, plant leathers typically share three features:

1. They’re made from biomass, not animals or fossil fuels

Common feedstocks include:

• Leaves (e.g., Biophilica’s Treekind® made from urban plant waste)
• Pineapple leaves (Piñatex)
• Cactus, apple, mango or grape by-products
• Mycelium (mushroom root structures) — often grouped with “alt-leathers”
• Natural fibres (cellulose, cotton waste, agricultural residues)

2. They’re engineered to behave like leather

This can be done through:

• Fibre reinforcement
• Natural binding agents
• Coatings (in fully plant-based versions, these avoid petrochemical PU or PVC)
• Mechanical processing (pressing, tanning alternatives, etc.)

The goal is to reproduce leather’s durability, flexibility, tear strength, aesthetic and tactile qualities, but without the environmental footprint of animal agriculture or plastics.

3. They aim for lower environmental impact

Depending on the material, benefits can include:

• Reduced CO₂ emissions
• No animal inputs
• Lower water and land use
• Non-toxic processing
• Compostable or biodegradable end-of-life options (e.g., TreeKind® is fully compostable)

What plant leather is not

It’s not “vegan leather” in the traditional sense. Most vegan leathers on the market today are polyurethane (PU) or PVC synthetics, aka petroleum-based plastics, with significant environmental drawbacks. Plant leathers aim to replace these with plastic-free or highly bio-based alternatives.

Next gen materials: A high-growth industry under pressure

Searching over next-generation materials and plant leather companies can prove tricky, as it’s such a new subsector. But with Beauhurst, we can use the platform to make complicated searches for niche industries like this.

We ran a Beauhurst search across the UK-based companies with descriptions which contain or have similar matches to: vegan leather, plant leather, next-gen materials, plant based fibres, Mycelium, mushroom leather, biobased materials, plant based leather, pineapple leather, apple leather, and biomaterials.

Although different to plant leather, we’ve included vegan leather in our search as it sits under the umbrella of next-generation materials.

Since 2015, active companies in this space have jumped from 17 to 49 in 2025. And there was record high investment into these companies in 2024 — £59.7m invested across 11 funding rounds. From our research, it’s evident that this subsector is growing.

Globally, several high-profile next-generation materials companies have struggled to scale, even after raising significant capital. According to Mira Nameth, this has less to do with the viability of the materials themselves, and more to do with how the system around them is structured.

“The most urgent structural issue is the misalignment of risk, capital, and responsibility across the value chain.”

She explains that innovators are expected to solve multiple, interdependent challenges simultaneously — often without adequate support.

Companies in this space are expected to simultaneously:

• Match plastic-level performance refined over decades
• Achieve cost targets that only become possible at scale
• Meet increasingly strict sustainability and regulatory standards
• Deliver brand-specific aesthetics and formats
• Do so with very limited R&D support, as brands delay commitments until proof of scale exist

Nameth stresses that this challenge is not historically neutral.

As a result, next-gen materials are being asked to compete against technologies that are already de-risked, without comparable structural backing.

Regulation deadlines and the lack of viable materials

WWhile sustainability regulations are tightening across Europe and the UK, Nameth argues that compliance is increasingly constrained by materials availability rather than intent.

“Because most regulations are materials-constrained, not motivation-constrained.”

She explains that many regulatory frameworks now implicitly require materials that meet a demanding set of criteria simultaneously.

PFAS bans, fossil-carbon reduction targets, recyclability and compostability mandates implicitly require materials that:

• Perform at plastic-equivalent levels
• Are safe and regulation-compliant
• Have credible end-of-life pathways
• Can be manufactured at scale

Incumbent materials, she notes, cannot meet these requirements — but alternatives need time and support to do so.

“However, without fundamentally new material architectures, brands are forced into trade-offs regulators are increasingly unwilling to accept.”

The innovator’s dilemma in sustainable materials

Nameth highlights a core contradiction facing startups in this space: scale is required to reduce cost, but proof of scale is demanded before commitments are made.

“Brands typically want guaranteed large supply, without contributing funding to the development of that scaled supply. This is understandable from their perspective, but challenging for startups.”

At the same time, investor behaviour reinforces this dynamic.

“Because a few over-hyped innovators have not been successful or have scaled at a slower pace than expected, up-and-coming next-gen materials have a harder time with investment.”

This creates what Nameth describes as a self-reinforcing stall.

Why hype cycles are damaging for sustainability

While the biomaterials industry has often been framed through hype cycles, Nameth cautions against treating sustainability innovation as a trend.

“The climate and regulatory context is not a hype cycle, but capital and procurement behaviour still are, which have the potential to make sustainable solutions vulnerable.”

She warns that if this cycle keeps repeating, its could have long-term consequences for innovation itself.

“If brands assume that new innovators will always appear, they are misreading the signals.

“The challenges of first- and second-generation companies are not just growing pains. Without structural change, the pipeline will shrink precisely when regulation demands it expand.”

The brand/investor disconnect

A core bottleneck in next-gen materials is the gap between what brands need, what investors expect, and what innovators can deliver.

Brands are reluctant to commit early

Brands often want materials proven, priced competitively, and fully validated before committing, even at pilot quantities. But without early revenue or long-term offtake agreements, innovators can’t secure investment.

Investors wait for de-risking documentation

VCs typically want signed contracts or sizable letters of intent to de-risk their bets. But those same documents are often impossible for innovators to secure without already having scale.

So it’s a catch-22: No letter of intent = no funding = no scale = no letter of intent

Ongoing restructuring disrupts timelines

Innovation projects inside major brands often stretch across several years. When teams restructure — as they frequently do — R&D leads change, priorities shift, and entire collaborations can evaporate.

The result is a development landscape where innovators shoulder almost the entire financial burden.

These challenges are not unique to individual founders or companies. From a policy and innovation-funding perspective, the difficulty of scaling next-generation biomaterials is widely recognised.

We spoke with Lesley Rubenstein-Pessok from the Innovate UK Business Growth team, based at UCL, who told us:

“Working with the vastly exciting, early-stage company, planet-friendly Biophilica Ltd, a world-leading fully compostable, vegan leather developer/manufacturer, has highlighted how challenging the development and implementation of next gen biomaterials is. In a marketplace where there is obvious demand for sustainable, low-carbon, low water usage material alternatives, the deep pocket retail brands are less willing to support the start-ups in the riskier stages.

“From the private investment perspective, investors typically want to see traction in the form of strong letters-of-intent or revenue before investing, thereby reducing risk. If they do invest at the earlier stages, their time-frame expectations are often unrealistic. Therefore, bridging the ‘valley of death’ remains a systemic imperative in this sector, if we want to achieve net zero and beyond.”

Brands burned by previous failures are cautious

With high-profile companies halting programmes or pivoting, brands become reluctant to invest again.

What could help plant-leather break through?

1. A “many-to-many” model

Instead of one brand partnering deeply with one material — an approach vulnerable to attrition — Nameth proposes a portfolio model:

• Brands collaborate with multiple materials simultaneously
• Innovators receive broader, earlier-stage support
• The best-fit materials progress through phased validation

“Many-to-many projects and investment, instead of high-risk investments or projects, brands should come together and support a group of innovators within the same category, based on shared requirements,” Nameth explains.

This approach, she tells us, helps avoid company-ending failures.

“Innovators pursue multiple applications or markets at an early stage, allowing weaker pathways to fail early without company-ending consequences.”

2. Phased development to unlock investment

Milestone-driven funding (similar to biotech) could allow innovators to secure:

• Early technical grants
• Mid-stage validation funding
• Late-stage manufacturing investment

Each phase would unlock the next, reducing risk for investors and easing pressure on startups to “leap” directly to scale.

3. Mandated corporate R&D budgets based on reported CO2 and waste numbers

Regulation-mandated budgets per industry which qualify for pre-approved R&D tax credits. Budgets would be divided by corporations based on their current CO2 and waste numbers (higher numbers equals larger budgets). Budgets would be used for projects together with an official list of innovative companies or as match-funding for UK or EU grants. Results would be directly tied to decreases in CO2 and waste numbers.

4. Policy support and clearer pathways to compliance

Regulators are tightening standards around plastics, chemical usage, emissions and waste.

Without reliable supply of next-gen materials, brands risk failing to meet 2030 and 2050 environmental targets.

5. Sector-wide collaboration via groups

Organisations like the MII Innovator Forum, part of Material Innovation Initiative (MII), and Fashion For Good bring together leading next-gen materials startups to share challenges, align messaging, and advocate collectively.

Cross-industry coalitions could help standardise testing regimes, streamline partnerships, and ensure innovators aren’t navigating fragmented brand requirements alone.

The future of sustainable materials

Next-gen materials are not a niche experiment. They are essential to achieving global climate and biodiversity goals, and to enabling fashion brands to comply with emerging regulations.

But unless innovators receive earlier support, more realistic commercial timelines, and collaborative funding models, progress may stall just as the industry needs acceleration.

The path forward will require:

• Clearer brand commitments
• Flexible investment models
• Stronger regulatory alignment
• Shared development pipelines

Nameth is clear that the stakes extend far beyond market cycles.

Explore the data

Want to understand the UK’s next-gen materials ecosystem, from plant-leather pioneers to biotech scale-ups?

Explore Beauhurst data on the UK’s next-gen materials startups and see which innovators are shaping the future of sustainable fashion.