Making a pair of denims requires as a lot water as a mean U.S. family consumes in a number of days, in response to Levi Strauss. Multiply that by $6.4 billion in annual gross sales, and the model guzzles 66 billion gallons of freshwater a 12 months.
Persevering with its work to cut back the environmental affect of the denim business, Levi’s newest technique expands water stewardship from its vegetation to the communities through which they function. A 35-page report, launched Oct. 22, spells out this try to make a “optimistic affect” on water sources throughout 30 provider nations.
One key goal is a 15 % lower in freshwater use throughout the Levi’s provide chain in contrast with 2022 ranges. This comes on the heels of the corporate admitting to lacking its objective to halve consumption in elements of the world with water vulnerabilities by 2025 over 2018 ranges.
“Our intention is to construct on our long-held dedication to water stewardship to make a optimistic affect on water high quality, amount and entry whereas defending and restoring nature,” Jennifer DuBuisson, senior director of worldwide sustainability at Levi Strauss, informed Trellis through e mail.
Levi’s newest technique additionally goals to:
- Recycle or reuse 40 % of water throughout manufacturing and mills, open-sourcing strategies. This may account for two-thirds of the deliberate water discount, with the ultimate third ensuing from effectivity measures.
- Be sure that dyeing and different operations that create wastewater discharges adjust to the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemical substances Basis.
- Higher perceive “sizzling spots” for water use and air pollution in uncooked supplies and textile spinning vegetation.
The corporate took a tough look earlier this 12 months on the reverse ends of its provide chain — cotton subject and manufacturing facility flooring — that are answerable for the largest impacts. Utilizing the Science-Primarily based Targets for Nature framework, Levi’s discovered that 70 % of its results on freshwater methods come from rising cotton in burdened areas. Tier 1 manufacturing, together with air pollution from laundering, contributes between 16 to 38 % of its impacts to freshwater.
The corporate additionally appointed Chris Callieri, its first provide chain officer to report back to the CEO, in August, and launched a program to assist suppliers in India undertake renewables a month later.
Its earlier 12 months’s progress included moist ending suppliers in high-risk areas shrinking freshwater utilization by 27 %, a financial savings of about 1.8 billion gallons over six years. The quantity of reused and recycled water amongst suppliers rose by 85 % in that very same interval.
Water resilience
Shifting ahead, the corporate’s 2030 technique contains the next water resilience efforts, which lack public numeric targets:
- Creating initiatives to revive watersheds in high-stress areas, together with in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
- Bringing water, sanitation and hygiene initiatives to extra individuals in creating areas.
The place it stands
The denim pioneer has lengthy been a frontrunner of water duty efforts in an business through which solely one-third of manufacturers are at the moment engaged on water stewardship targets, and simply 17 % observe progress, in response to The World Vogue Agenda Monitor’s report for 2024.
Levi’s effort to create “waterless” denims, which started in 2007, led to a Water>Much less technique that’s now the open-source norm for the business. Its methods scale back water utilization by 96 %, in response to the corporate.
Equally, Levi’s is acknowledged as the primary attire model to set world wastewater discharge requirements, which it did within the Nineties. And 20 years in the past, it joined the launch of the Higher Cotton Initiative to cut back water utilization within the development of the crop.
At the moment, some 2.2 billion individuals globally proceed to lack entry to wash water, in response to WaterAid America, which engages with Levi’s on water sanitation initiatives in India. In a press assertion, WaterAid America’s CEO Kelly Parsons praised the partnership as addressing “one of the vital difficult, however solvable, issues of this technology.”
“Their 2030 water technique embodies the ambition wanted for a water-resilient future,” mentioned Jason Morrison, head of the CEO Water Mandate and president of the Pacific Institute.
