Sustainability Begins With the Product

For two decades, Levi Strauss & Co. has been a pioneer in reducing the environmental impact of our products. We want to build sustainability into every product we make.

Since the early 1990s, we’ve been a leader in attempting to minimize the adverse environmental impacts of our business. Factories that make our jeans must adhere to our strict water quality requirements. Manufacturers and suppliers cannot use harmful chemicals listed on our Restricted Substance List. We were leaders in introducing jeans made from organic cotton and recycled denim that use packaging made from recycled materials.

To do more, we realized that we needed to establish a baseline in our push toward becoming a carbon neutral company and restoring the environment. In 2007, we conducted a lifecycle assessment to measure the environmental impact of two of our most popular products, a pair of Levi’s® 501s® and a pair of Dockers® Original Khakis.

The lifecycle assessment uncovered a surprising but critical fact: some of the biggest environmental impacts from our products occur in the two lifecycle stages that we don’t control: what happens in the cotton fields and later on, in the hands of consumers. In response, we’re working harder to promote sustainably grown cotton and to influence how our consumers care for their clothes.