Automotive company Volvo has announced that the pure-electric vehicles it produces in the years ahead will be 100% leather-free.

Volvo presented new electrification plans at the start of March. It announced that by 2025, half of the vehicles it sells will be fully electric. By 2030, the company said all of its cars would be 100% electric. It said this was part of a broader strategy for the brand to be “fully climate-neutral” by 2040.

As part of the same announcement, it unveiled a new electric car, the Volvo C40 Recharge, which will be Volvo’s first electric-only car. It will also be the first of the brand’s vehicles to be sold exclusively online.

Chief technology officer, Henrik Green, said that, with the C40 Recharge, Volvo was “also taking a stance for animal welfare”. He said this as a preamble to the announcement that this car and the other pure-electric vehicles it brings out in the coming years as it transforms its portfolio will be leather-free.

On March 3, World Leather asked Volvo to explain what connection it saw between “a stance for animal welfare” and its decision to stop using leather. The company said it would make a further announcement on the subject in the coming weeks.

The secretary of the International Council of Tanners, Dr Kerry Senior, reacted by saying: “Not using leather will change nothing with regard to livestock rearing or animal welfare. It will see increasing numbers of hides simply being thrown away and a proliferation of synthetic materials that are mostly derived from unsustainable fossil-fuels.”