LS&Co. Unzipped
Apr 22 2013
Earth Day
It’s Earth Day 2013. A good day to think about the planet and our impact on it.
And consumption.
What’s a company like Levi Strauss & Co. – a company that depends upon people buying our products – doing talking about consuming?
Yes, we want you to buy our jeans and khakis and shirts and jackets.
But here’s the thing, we make these products to last. They won’t quickly fall apart or go out of fashion. Ask Maggie Meyers, who finally had to replace her favorite Levi's®…after ten years of wear.
And if you do have a problem with one of our products – we’re human; we make mistakes – we want to know about it. Contact us.
We take pride in our craftsmanship and quality, our innovation and sustainability.
We developed our Water<Less™ jeans and jackets to use significantly less water in the finishing process – saving 360 million liters of water in 2012 alone.
Our Waste<Less™ denim jeans repurpose existing materials, resulting in less use of our natural resources.
We joined the Better Cotton Initiative, aimed at improving the environment and working conditions at the farms that grow the cotton we source. Now, more than 20 million Levi’s® jeans include Better Cotton and other, more sustainable fibers.
It’s progress, not perfection. It’s a road that continues. We hope you’ll join us on that road -- and that you'll consider us when you’re in the market for the products we make.
Posted By: Cory Warren, Editor, LS&Co. Unzipped |
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2013
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Mike Stemo (not verified) - May 14 2013
Raising the bar: In light of the building collapse in Bangladesh I was re-reading the Levi/Ceres approach to workers in the Levi supply chain. Given that so many clothing companies spend time searching for the next low cost source of labor I believe it is time for Levi to move this bar higher...much higher than the recently released Fire and safety code for the Bangladesh garment industry. This step, which is important, only meets one part of the needs for employee's working in the garment industry. When I say "raise the bar" the need is to establish a much higher standard for workers in countries in Bangladesh. As a consumer, I am OK if this raises the price of my Levi Jeans product. If I must pay 15% or 20% more...I find this an acceptable trade-off of my $$'s for worker sustainability in underdeveloped countries. Only when companies like Levi set a higher standard will others be forced to follow. If not, the bottom dwellers will continue to move production to the next low cost source of labor.
Editor's note: Thanks, Mike, for your comment. We pride ourselves on our standards across our supplier factories. You probably know we were the first multinational apparel company to set worker health and safety guidelines in these factories, back in 1991. Several years ago, we instituted a policy in Bangladesh to not produce garments in multi-level, multi-owner buildings. It’s just too hard to enforce safety standards in such situations. We work with only a small number of factories in Bangladesh – 13 now – in large part because many don’t meet our worker and fire safety standards. We require all of our suppliers, globally, to pass fire safety and emergency preparedness assessments. In Bangladesh, we also require suppliers to pass third-party electrical safety audits. And we're currently piloting a program in five factories — including one in Bangladesh — to identify and support programs that improve factory workers' lives beyond the factory floor. For Levi Strauss & Co., it's an ongoing commitment.
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