Levi’s® Named Among Top Eco-Friendly Brands


Levi Strauss & Co.
August 3, 2016

Style and sustainability can go hand in hand.
Forbes recently recognized four brands pulling off sustainable chic, including Levi’s®.
For us, it’s about reducing our water impact. From the cotton fields to manufacturing facilities, every step of the process to create a garment requires water – and we recognize we have not a drop to waste.
In 2011, and again in 2015, the company conducted a lifecycle assessment of a pair of 501® jeans.
“The results were eye-opening, especially around the use of water in making our products,” Michael Kobori, Vice President, Sustainability at Levi Strauss & Co., told Forbes. “It helped push us to find new, innovative ways to design with sustainability in mind.”
Playing our part in addressing the issue of water scarcity is what led to the creation of our Water<Less™ finishing techniques, which reduce the amount of water used to manufacture a pair of jeans by up to 96 percent.
The solve was a simple, yet innovative one. For instance, by removing water from stone washes or combining multiple wet cycle processes resulted in a significant drop in water usage without sacrificing the look and feel that customers expect from Levi’s®.
Since launching the Water<Less™ process, the company has saved more than 1 billion liters of water in the manufacturing of LS&Co. products, including 30 million liters of fresh water saved through reuse and recycling. By 2020, the Levi’s® brand aims to make 80 percent of its products using Water<Less™ techniques, up from nearly 25 percent today.
See what other companies join Levi’s® on Forbes’ list of eco-friendly fashion brands.
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