In line with Chip Bergh, president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.), it’s as much as everybody to reverse the consequences of local weather change.
“Local weather is the existential disaster of our time—a menace to commerce and communities across the globe—and all of us have a duty to behave,” he mentioned within the firm’s first-ever standalone sustainability report.
One of many first corporations to decide to emissions reductions in line with the 1.5°C restrict acknowledged within the Paris Agreement, the corporate says its targets stay among the many most formidable within the attire business. By 2025, the mother or father firm of Levi’s, Dockers and now Beyond Yoga, plans to scale back water utilization in manufacturing areas of excessive water stress by 50 p.c, cut back GHG emissions throughout its international provide chain by 40 p.c and minimize GHG emissions in all owned and operated amenities by 90 p.c.
It additionally pledges to include 100% renewable electricity in all owned-and-operated amenities and guarantee all cloth and garment suppliers are as much as par with the corporate’s Water<Much less objectives, which it set in 2011 to maximise water effectivity in attire manufacturing.
Within the report, the corporate famous that it’s on monitor to fulfill its science-based targets, and mapped out the steps it’s taking to scale back its local weather impression and give attention to water stewardship and biodiversity.
Local weather motion
LS&Co. developed its Local weather Motion Technique in 2017 to scale back its environmental impression throughout its direct operations and international provide chain—and far of that includes working with suppliers to set their very own sustainable objectives. Its key suppliers—these representing roughly 80 p.c of ultimate product quantity—are actually dedicated to decreasing their very own emissions by 40 p.c, by each tools modifications and renewable energy investments.
Different partnerships embody these with organizations devoted to producing cleaner power at scale. LS&Co. partnered with the Worldwide Finance Company (IFC) to help mills and producers of their power and water effectivity investments. Shifting ahead, LS&Co. will broaden on this partnership to get extra participation throughout its provide chain.
Delivery can be a serious space of focus for the corporate. Whereas ocean delivery makes up 85 p.c of the corporate’s shipments from nation of origin to distribution facilities, it additionally makes use of different strategies akin to rail, trucking, barge transport and air freight when mandatory. It really works with delivery suppliers that provide eco-friendlier options, together with one technique of utilizing waste-based biofuels to maneuver giant containers with internet zero CO2 emissions. In 2020, it shipped 500 containers utilizing the strategy, and can improve that quantity to 1,000 containers by the tip of this 12 months.
It additionally arrange the choice of direct delivery, which permits sure shipments to go on to the retail buyer with out stopping at a distribution middle—a course of that requires a detailed partnership with a third-party logistics supplier to make sure the cargo will get to its acceptable vacation spot.
Vitality utilization
LS&Co.’s owned-and-operated amenities embody greater than 1,000 retail shops, greater than 80 places of work, 10 distribution facilities and two manufacturing vegetation. Its techniques for power discount in every of those areas have the potential to make a serious impression general.
Of its eight LEED-certified amenities, the latest to obtain the distinguished certification are its distribution middle in Henderson, Nev., the biggest of its form to obtain the Platinum designation on the time of its certification, and the Levi’s Shanghai Beacon retailer in Nanjing East, the primary Levi’s retailer in mainland China to be licensed LEED Silver when it opened in 2020.
LS&Co. is within the strategy of designing a brand new distribution middle in Germany full with constructing supplies that help a round financial system and are internet optimistic on local weather and water. The middle is anticipated to fulfill a majority of its personal power wants, as it is going to function photo voltaic and geothermal energy plus a rooftop backyard that can cut back warmth island results and reduce storm water run-off. Development will start later this 12 months, with operations scheduled to start in late 2023.
Retail shops will even get an power makeover, with small modifications that produce massive outcomes, akin to switching to LED lighting and putting in techniques that dim lights after hours. Even mannequins are getting an replace through 100% recycled base inventory that blends each post-industrial and post-consumer supplies.
Water stewardship
LS&Co.’s Water<Much less program was initially constructed on technical improvements that save water in contrast with conventional strategies in cloth improvement and garment ending. By the tip of 2020, 67 p.c of all LS&Co. merchandise had been made utilizing Water<Much less ending strategies or in amenities that meet its water recycle and reuse pointers. To-date, this system is liable for saving 13 billion liters of water since its launch in 2011.
LS&Co. is working with suppliers to scale back water use and air pollution, and guarantee amenities adhere to the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemical compounds (ZDHC) Basis’s wastewater pointers’ customary and recycle greater than 20 p.c of the water utilized in manufacturing. Between 2014 and 2020, suppliers recycled round 8.5 billion liters of water.
Inside its owned-and-operated factories in South Africa, the ability makes use of 100% recycled water in manufacturing to offset its reliance on the harassed native freshwater provide. Moreover, by utilizing LS&Co.’s Water<Much less ending strategies, the corporate diminished water utilization in manufacturing by greater than 25 p.c.
Biodiversity
In 2020, 88 p.c of the fiber content material in LS&Co.’s merchandise was cotton. Whereas it’s dedicated to bolstering its sourcing of natural and recycled cotton by initiatives with Higher Cotton and the U.S. Cotton Belief Protocol, the corporate is exploring different materials, because it states that rising cotton is likely one of the largest contributors to biodiversity loss inside style. It’s particularly trying to hemp, which is understood to be much less water-intensive and require fewer chemical substances and fewer land use. Its most environmentally aware assortment, WellThread, together with its Trend for Good partnership, will assist the corporate bolster its different fiber analysis.
It’s additionally dedicated to stopping fiber sourcing from historic and endangered forests, and is utilizing extra recycled and revolutionary fibers akin to Refibra and Circulose, which even have decrease impacts on land use and biodiversity.
However whereas LS&CO. is dedicated to decreasing its environmental impression throughout all of those areas throughout its worth chain, the corporate is aware of how decreasing impacts in a single class, akin to wastewater therapy, would possibly create hostile secondary results in others, akin to power use. The corporate says it is going to “proceed working with suppliers to steadiness [these areas] for the best internet profit.”
