Discover how we're recycling denim to save water and reduce our carbon footprint.Read More
Discover how we're recycling denim to save water and reduce our carbon footprint.
Read More
Use and Reuse
For nearly 150 years, we’ve designed durable, quality products and we are invested in the extension of their life span.
Consumer use and disposal accounts for 23 percent of the total water used, and up to 40 percent of the climate impact during the life cycle of a pair of jeans. Disposal is also a major issue; across the industry, over half of all garments made annually are burned or buried within one year. That has to change.
That’s why we’ve made it a priority to educate consumers on how they can extend the life span of their clothing – like washing jeans less often or by getting them repaired and reinforced – and how and where they can donate and recycle anything they’re no longer wearing.
We created the first product tag, Care Tag for Our Planet, which offers tips on how to best preserve your clothing. We also offer Levi’s® Authorized Vintage, the most authentic, everlasting vintage pre-owned or restored items on the market. Additionally, we work with Blue Jeans Go Green in the U.S. and Canada, and other organizations in different countries to collect used clothing. And we are increasingly designing products that are suitable for true circularity – with 100 percent recyclable materials – from the outset.
Water
The Issue
Consumer care accounts for 23 percent of the total water used during the lifecycle of one pair of jeans.
Our Way Forward
Our Care Tag for Our Planet is sewn into our products, urging people to wash their jeans infrequently, line dry them if they do, and donate them when they are done with them.
Climate
The Issue
Consumer use and disposal accounts for 40 percent of the climate impact of a pair of jeans.
Our Way Forward
In addition to ongoing efforts to reduce our carbon footprint across our supply chain, we offer Levi’s® Authorized Vintage clothing, repair capabilities and a growing range of in-store recycling options.
Chemicals
The Issue
The more clothes that are made, the more chemicals are required.
Our Way Forward
We have expanded and open-sourced our Screened Chemistry program, and our F.L.X. technology reduces the need for many chemicals and allows us to digitize functions that previously required additional manufacturing.
People
The Issue
Fast fashion encourages consumers to consume more, with too little concern for what that consumption means for the environment.
Our Plan
Our products are built to last and can be customized and repaired across their life cycle. We also speak often about the realities of the apparel industry and the need to develop new technologies and habits more suitable for the world we live in now.
Partnerships for Progress
The first Care Tag for Our Planet
We created our Care Tag for Our Planet in 2009 to provide consumers with straightforward, more sustainable care instructions for their jeans so that they look better and last longer. The Levi’s® and Dockers® brands now include relevant messaging on all global product care tags encouraging us to “Wash less, wash in cold, line dry, and donate when no longer needed.”
Levi’s® Tailor ShopsWhile LS&Co. has always made products that are built to last, we are actively exploring new ways to extend the life of our garments even further. A key element of that effort is the expansion of the in-store Tailor Shops we have at flagship stores around the globe, where people can bring their denim to be repaired or repurposed, extending the useful life of LS&Co. garments. Learn more.
Levi’s® Authorized VintageThe best jeans for the planet are the ones you don’t have to make. We estimate that selling a Levi’s® Authorized Vintage pair of previously used 501®s uses 98 percent less water than making a new pair and cuts out more than half of the carbon footprint. Learn more.
Recycle and RenewIn 2019, we partnered with Cotton Inc.’s Blue Jeans Go Green program in our stores and facilities, through which 132,899 discarded jeans were transformed into building insulation, saving 66 tons of waste from landfill. And will continue to refine our recycling programs moving forward.
Store DesignAll owned-and-operated US and Canadian retail locations and all US wholesale locations now use 100 percent post-consumer waste stock for their print materials. What’s more, our new mannequins are made from 100 percent recycled base stock that blends both post-industrial and post-consumer materials, and we are piloting recycled denim coat hangers in several locations as well.
