Levi Strauss is launching an effort to slash the environmental impact of the factories world-wide that make its apparel, reports The Wall Street Journal (Aug. 1, 2018). By 2025, the denim brand wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in its supply chain, a sprawling set of 580 third-party factories and mills in 39 countries. The company will start by implementing energy-efficiency programs at 60 of the factories and mills that represent the biggest share of both production volume and carbon footprint.
Many of those factories also produce apparel for other retailers, and Levi’s wants to set an example for its peers. “We want to have an outsize impact beyond our own footprint,” says Levi’s VP-Sustainability. Across many industries, support has been growing for broader, collective efforts to address sustainability in supply chains. Common standards across supplier networks are more likely to stick than varying targets for different vendors. (The British research journal Nature says apparel production is “one of the world’s most polluting industries,” producing about 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide annually).
As part of the new sustainability push, Levi is also committing to use 100% renewable energy and reduce emissions by 90% in its own facilities. But changing practices at its supplier factories will have more of an impact. Stand.earth, an environmental group that launched a campaign against the denim-maker last year called “Too Dirty to Wear,” applauded the Levi’s move. But it said it also wants to see the company commit to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 60% to 70% by 2050.
It can be extremely difficult for companies to calculate their total carbon emissions because the true impact stretches beyond the factories to raw materials providers and transport operations. The basic production of denim material also uses large amounts of water and produces chemical runoff. “When they say supply chain,” says an MIT prof, I’d ask, ‘How deep? If it’s tier 1, do you even know your tier 2, 3, 4, or 5 suppliers?”
Classroom discussion questions:
- Discuss the impact of blue jeans on sustainability (See the OM in Action box in Supplement 5).
- Why is sustainability such a difficult issue in the apparel industry?