How Many Cows Does it Take to Make a New Mercedes CLS?

Officially, there are about four dead cows inside every new Mercedes CLS.

When Mercedes-Benz proudly unveiled their 2012 CLS-class at the Paris Motor Show last month, among the luxury features celebrated in their press release was the fact that "around four animal skins are processed for each CLS."

Is the caveman from the GEICO commercials their new marketing director? When is the last time you saw a company brag about how many carcasses went into its product? Despite concepts like animal rights and veganism hitting the mainstream, apparently Mercedes is siding with the fur industry in the belief that displaying dead animals never goes out of style.

But if they really want to show off their stylish disregard for other species, or their domination of nature, they should include the full impact of producing a leather interior.

Leather is a by-product of the meat and dairy industry. So, consider, for instance, all the brutality and waste that goes into making your average factory-farmed burger, because that's part of the story of how those four animal skins made their way into the luxury car.

In reality, more than four animals gave their skins for each Mercedes. Before the cows became car interiors, they were on factory farms, which clear-cut forests (a.k.a. wildlife habitat) and dump all sorts of animal waste and harmful contaminants into waterways. Once the animals are slaughtered and their skins are sold off, the toxic brewing process has just begun.

See, flesh has a way of decomposing, which wouldn't go over so well with customers, so leather goes through an intensive preservation process that involves a nasty chemical cocktail ... and then tanneries have a tendency to dump their waste into nearby streams. Even the more eco-friendly "vegetable tanning" process has problems; it may not use industrial carcinogens, but it can produce lethal bacteria that ends up in the environment (and I have my doubts that Mercedes has gone the eco-friendly route on the CLS).

So, if Mercedes really wants to brag about how many animals it took to make their CLS, they can load several species of fish, birds and other wildlife into their cars, too. Maybe a few workers who have died of cancer from all those chemicals as well.

But Mercedes may be on to something here. While I doubt many of their customers will read the full specs that includes the body count, what if every company listed how many animals went into each of their products? Even if the collateral damage of wildlife and other animals wasn't included, would it change people's purchasing practices if the shoe box said how many cows were inside, or the package of bacon said how many pigs you were looking at?

Photo credit: Ed Callow