sustainability – Page 4 – The OM Blog by Heizer, Render, & Munson

OM in the News: The Plastic Bag Controversy

The NY ban on plastic bags has forced customers to use bags of paper, cotton, or more durable plastics.

Reusable shopping bags are “petri dishes for bacteria and carriers of harmful pathogens,” read one warning from a plastics industry group. They are “virus-laden.” The group’s target? Countless Americans increasingly using natural fiber bags instead of disposable plastic bags.

The plastic bag industry, battered by a wave of bans nationwide, is using the coronavirus crisis to try to block laws prohibiting single-use plastic, reports The New York Times (March 26, 2020). “We simply don’t want millions of Americans bringing germ-filled reusable bags into retail establishments putting the public and workers at risk,” said an industry campaign ad. The Plastics Industry Association went so far as to request the US government to declare that banning single-use plastics during a pandemic is a health threat.

The science around reusable bags and their potential to spread disease is contentious. One study found that reusable plastic bags can contain bacteria, and that users don’t wash reusable bags very often. A government study found that coronavirus can remain on plastics for up to 3 days.

What is clear, however, is that single-use plastic bans have become a growing threat for the plastics industry. Packaging makes up 1/3 of end-use demand for plastic resins as a whole. Before the coronavirus outbreak, the nationwide move to ban plastic bags had reached California, Hawaii, New York, as well as cities like Boston, Boulder, Chicago, and Seattle. But now disposability, once a dirty word, has become a selling point as hygiene takes priority over sustainability. Because plastic is made from fossil fuels, plastic prices track oil prices — which have slumped. That has made recycling plastic less economical.

Ironically, the bag ban in California in 2016, which led to elimination of 40 million pounds of single-use plastic bags, led to a 12 million pound increase in larger trash-bag purchases.

Classroom discussion questions:

Make the case in support of single-use plastic bags.
Make the case against them.

OM in the News: The Fraught Future of Recycling

The American recycling industry is in crisis — and cities are on the front lines.

The economics undergirding the U.S. recycling system have fallen apart, writes Energy and the Environment (Feb. 15, 2020). Unable to absorb the extra cost, some cities are opting to kill recycling programs altogether — just as public concerns about climate change are ratcheting up. Why? (1) China, the biggest buyer of U.S. recycled materials, has closed its doors. Before the ban, the U.S. was exporting around 70% of its waste to China. (2) Changing consumer behaviors have made the trash-sorting process more complex and expensive.

A major Maryland recycling center area used to turn a healthy profit from processing recycled materials from a 50-mile radius. Now it’s having to pay vendors to truck material away. The Prince William County facility operates up to 22 hours a day to process about 550 tons of thrown out paper, plastic, aluminum and glass delivered there daily.

Despite the heavy machinery and increased automation involved, the process is still extremely dependent on humans.
On each shift, 28 “sorters” sift through the material as it rolls down a series of fast-moving conveyer belts. The workers spot and pull out non-recyclable trash from the stream so fast that they look like card dealers in a game of blackjack.
Contamination is a huge problem. People throw surprising things — Christmas trees, old carpet, shoes, diapers and even cinder blocks — into their recycling bins.

About 60 other cities are struggling to make recycling work or have cancelled their programs. Others have stopped accepting glass, paper or plastics. (Baltimore County just admitted that it hasn’t recycled the glass its collected for the past 7 years). Some have seen massive increases in their costs. Omaha, Nebraska, received a single bid for recycling services for $4 million, twice the city’s budget. Milton, Massachusetts, experienced a 36% increase in recycling costs.

Classroom discussion questions:

How is this a Triple Bottom Line issue? (See Supp. 5 of your Heizer/Render/Munson OM text).
What can companies, government, and society do?

OM in the News: Your Foam Coffee Cup Is Fighting for Its Life

The Dart Container Corporation, which makes foam products, is a manufacturing behemoth and produced a fortune for the family behind it. Dart makes, by the millions, white foam cups, clamshells, coffee cup lids, and disposable forks and knives — the single-use containers that enable Americans to eat and drink on the go. It employs 15,000 people across 14 states. But now many of its products are being labeled as environmental blights contributing to the world’s plastic pollution problem, writes The New York Times (Feb. 11, 2020).

Cities and states are increasingly banning one of Dart’s signature products, foam food and beverage containers, which can harm fish and other marine life. Maine and Maryland banned polystyrene foam containers last year, and nearly 60 nations have enacted or are in the process of passing similar prohibitions. Environmental groups say polystyrene containers are difficult to recycle in any meaningful way. They believe the harm that plastic pollution can inflict on marine life is immediate. “There is overwhelming evidence that this material is seriously damaging the earth,” said a Maryland lawmaker.

But Dart is not backing down. After Maryland voted to ban foam, Dart shut down its warehouses in the state, displacing 90 workers and sending a signal to other locales. San Diego recently decided to suspend enforcement of its polystyrene ban in the face of a lawsuit by Dart. Even as the market for polystyrene shrinks, many environmental groups want to abolish foam entirely because if it ends up as litter, it can break down easily into small pieces, harming fish and animals that ingest it. For humans, plastic fibers have been found in everything from drinking water to table salt.

The same properties that can make foam an environmental problem also make it profitable to manufacture. The costs are low because foam is 95% air and can be made using relatively little raw plastic.

Classroom discussion questions:

Relate this issue to the Triple Bottom Line, as discussed in Supplement 5 in your Heizer/Render/Munson text.
What is Dart’s position in terms of sustainability?

OM in the News: Hotel Chains Ditch Travel-Sized Toiletries

Accor Hotels is the latest global hotel chain to eliminate travel-sized toiletries from its rooms. The company, which owns 40 brands including Ibis, Novotel, the Fairmont and Mondrian, is removing individual tubes of shampoo, conditioner and bath gel from its 340,000 guest rooms. It’s part of Accor’s broader environmental campaign that includes getting rid of all single-use plastic items at its 5,000 properties.

Accor is replacing the plastic toiletries with either wall dispensers or glass, bulk-sized toiletries by the end of 2020. The chain is also replacing a number of common hotel items usually made from plastic, including keycards, laundry bags and cups, with materials made from “relevant alternatives.” More than 200 million single-use plastic items are used annually at Accor’s hotels. The changes are part of its effort that focuses on “reducing environmental impacts and strengthening efforts to combat plastic pollution of the world’s oceans and other natural environments.” Accor is joining a growing list of hotel chains have been making changes to benefit the environment.

Businesses are facing disruption from climate change and customers are increasingly demanding that products and services are environmentally friendly, reports CNN Business (Jan. 22, 2020). Last year Marriott said it was ditching personal toiletries from its more than 1 million guest rooms starting in 2020. The chain, which also owns Ritz-Carlton and W Hotels, said it expects to reduce its plastic disposal by 30% annually. IHG, which owns Kimpton Hotels and Crowne Plaza, is also in the process of replacing individual plastic toiletries with bulk-sized ones across its 843,000 rooms. So is Hilton, which has more than 950,000 rooms globally. That hotel chain also has a number of other environmental initiatives in place, including participating in the Clean the World soap program and improving energy efficiency.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. What are other examples of product design improvements discussed in Supp. 5 of your Heizer/Render/Munson text?

2. How will this movement help sustainability?

OM in the News: Why Used Clothes Head for the Dump and Not the Recycling Center

Shoppers are buying more clothes and discarding them faster than ever, sending an increasing amount of textiles to the dump and propelling the fashion industry to search for new technology to recycle used garments, reports The Wall Street Journal (Oct. 4, 2019). The growth of fast-fashion retailers like H&M, Zara, and Gap–each vying to deliver quicker and cheaper style–has flooded the world with affordable clothing that is worn just a few times.

The number of garments purchased annually by the average consumer jumped 60% from 2000 to 2014, while the number of times an item is worn before it is discarded dropped 36%. Despite the buildup of used clothes, the technology to recycle old textiles into fiber to make new ones has remained embryonic, meaning clothes eventually end up in the dump or incinerator. Textiles in American landfills jumped 68% from 2000 to 2015.

So far, companies have focused on improving collection of used clothes. H&M and Zara have in-store bins to collect garments which are then sold as secondhand clothing, largely to emerging markets. But there has been little regulatory pressure on clothing makers to take responsibility for the waste generated by their products, unlike the crackdown seen in other areas, such as single-use plastics. Garments that are recycled are mostly turned into lower-value products like wiping cloths and insulation, which ultimately hit the landfill. Less than 1% of the fiber used to produce clothes is recycled into new garments.

The growing popularity of synthetic clothing like fleece jackets and gym leggings is also releasing more tiny plastic particles into the ocean when the garments are washed. The good news is that Americans are increasingly shopping for secondhand clothing, driven by desire to save money, help the environment and avoid appearing in the same clothes twice on social media platforms.

Classroom discussion questions:

How can clothing manufacturers design and produce for sustainability? (See p.197-202 for ideas).
How many students in your class are buying used clothing, and why?

OM in the News: Saving the Planet With “Meatless Mondays?”

Without getting into the politics of global warming and sustainability, Businessweek (Sept. 30, 2019) brings up some interesting climate statistics that students may enjoy discussing.

For example, global meat consumption has more than doubled since the 1960s, and meat production is set to double again by 2050. Americans, who enjoy their steaks and burgers, eat 3 times as much meat as the global average. Should they, and other western diners curb their appetites? Consider this: Livestock are responsible for 12% of man-made greenhouse-gas emissions, more than the entire aviation industry. (Although we should point out that airlines this year will pump 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere).

Most of livestock emissions comes from just one animal: the cow. Cattle are responsible for vastly more emissions than chickens and pigs, in part because their digestive systems produce methane, a potent greenhouse gas. From a climate-change perspective, serving roast beef at dinner is like driving 100 miles in a car. But cattle don’t just produce gas; they also take up a lot of space. In Brazil, swaths of the Amazon have been cut down to make room for cattle ranches, releasing huge amounts of trapped carbon. Brazil is hardly alone: More than a quarter of the earth’s ice-free land has been set aside for grazing.

Most scientists agree that eating less meat would help to avert a worst-case climate scenario. If all the world swore off meat, it would cut global emissions by 8 gigatons a year — the same as shutting down 2,000 coal-fired power plants. Adopting the Mediterranean diet, which includes poultry but limits red meat, would have the same impact as driving 70 fewer miles each week. The “Meatless Mondays” movement, now active in 40 countries, commits followers to going vegetarian one day a week. The effects add up: Skipping a single quarter-pound hamburger can save more than 400 gallons of water and the energy it takes to power a smartphone for 6 months. Do it every week for a year, and the greenhouse-gas savings are equivalent to biking 1,000 miles instead of driving.

Classroom discussion questions:

How many students would support a “Meatless Monday?”
Why is this an OM issue, and how can managers act to cut greenhouse gasses?

OM in the News: Amazon Delivery Aims Electric, But Employees Want More

Amazon plans to buy 100,000 electric delivery vehicles as it seeks to reduce its carbon emissions in the face of criticism of its environmental impact, reports The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 20, 2019). The e-commerce giant is ordering the electric vehicles from startup Rivian Automotive, in which it invested $700 million this year. Amazon said the vehicles will start delivering packages to customers in 2021. The company plans to have 10,000 of the new electric vehicles on the road by 2022, and all 100,000 by 2030. Amazon has built up its delivery fleet in recent years and has become a force in the shipping industry, although it still works with companies such as UPS.

The sustainability commitments are part of a new climate pledge that promises Amazon will report greenhouse-gas emissions regularly and implement strategies to reduce carbon emissions. Amazon said it expects 80% of its energy use to come from renewable sources by 2024, up from 40% now. It is working toward its facilities being 100%-powered using renewable energy by 2030, helped in part by the development of large-scale wind and solar projects.

Amazon’s climate pledge comes one day before more than 1,550 Amazon employees world-wide threatened to walk out of work if the company didn’t do more to fight climate change. The group of Amazon employees said that the company’s announcement was a win, but said they still plan to walk. “The Paris Agreement, by itself, won’t get us to a livable world. Today, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we’ll be in the streets,”

Classroom discussion questions:

What are various components of Amazon’s delivery strategy?
Should employees be able to dictate the firm’s sustainability strategy?

OM in the News: Amazon’s Package Streamlining

Eight years ago, we reviewed an excellent book called Force of Nature: The Unlikely Story of Wal-Mart’s Green Revolution. At that time Wal-Mart, which was long the target of environmentalists, created nothing less than a green revolution. One of its changes was forcing suppliers to reduce packaging sizes, which ended up saving $3.4 billion a year while reducing trash.

Now, in a similar vein, the new giant on the block, Amazon, is pressuring brands to make their packaging more efficient, prompting vendors to make costly changes to their businesses or face fines. Amazon has told companies they must make packaging for thousands of larger products more compact and easier to open. Eventually, Amazon wants every product it ships to meet similar standards. The firm said the requirements will make packages more environmentally friendly.

The new packaging requirements are the latest example of Amazon’s power to get vendors to change the way they do business, writes The Wall Street Journal (July 30, 2019) . Manufacturers of items from soup to garden rakes say they have to sell through Amazon to reach more customers. Philips Norelco OneBlade said it cut the components in its razor packaging to 9 from 13 and reduced the volume of packaging by 80% to meet the new standard. Hill’s Pet Nutrition said it decreased the packaging volume of its Science Diet premium dog food by 34% and the amount of wasted space, or air shipped, by 82%. The maker of Rubbermaid FreshWorks said it cut the components used to ship its containers to 2 from 7.

Amazon’s expanding e-commerce footprint has been consuming more cardboard and plastic packaging. Now, it is trying to address consumer calls to cut back on waste while reducing excess weight and volume to generate savings on shipping as well.

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the similarities between Wal-Mart and Amazon in this regard? The differences?
Why is this an important OM issue?

OM in the News: Pollution and Sustainability on the Seas

Some shipowners want to avoid the financial impact of investing in new fuel and equipment to meet environmental targets by simply slowing ships down.

The new editions of our OM texts feature Celebrity Cruises, and Supp. 5 (Sustainability in the Supply Chain) includes a video case study called “Saving the Waves at Celebrity Cruises.” This recent article in The Wall Street Journal (May 11, 2019) provides a complementary discussion of sustainability issues at sea, as more than 100 shipowners have just signed a UN motion calling for slower sailing speeds to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The measure could ripple across international supply chains, with products taking more time to be delivered and cargo owners paying more for transport costs because of the longer sailings. But some container carriers oppose the slow-steaming plan, which they believe would undermine their efforts to improve service in the time-sensitive supply chains of their big consumer-goods customers.

Ships move the world’s commodities like oil, iron ore and grains and the vast majority of manufactured goods, including cars, home appliances, clothing and food. They also contribute around 3% of the world’s global pollution, an amount comparable to major emitting countries.

A new maritime environmental target takes effect Jan. 1st,, when vessels will be required to slash sulfur emissions that come from burning the heavy oil that powers ships. International Maritime Organization members have also agreed to improve ship fuel efficiency by 30% by 2025 and to slash greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2050, compared with 2008 levels.

Much of the sulfur-emissions reduction will come from using new low-sulfur fuel that oil refiners are preparing for the market. Operators also are buying equipment known as scrubbers that treat engine exhaust. The shift will add up to $15 billion a year to fuel costs industrywide.

Classroom discussion questions:

What are the tradeoffs shippers and cruise lines are facing?
What issues impact sustainability on the seas?

Guest Post: How Students Link Sustainability and Global Strife

Brent Snider is Teaching Professor, Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary.

Rosanna Cole is a Lecturer in Sustainable Supply Chain Management, University of Surrey.

The global business environment has become increasingly turbulent, with international alliances and trading blocs fragmenting, extreme political candidates gaining popularity, climate change intensifying, all as the growth of developing economies declines and civil instability grows in many regions.

We recently surveyed more than 200 undergrad and graduate (exec MBAs) business students in Alberta about their views on business, sustainability and this turbulence. We found that students have now gone beyond connecting how business actions impact a corporation’s sustainability performance to how those very same actions increase or decrease environmental and societal turbulence.

With turbulence from uncertainty intensifying, business education is feeling societal pressure to better inspire responsible management. Students viewed the globalization of supply chains as directly contributing to the current global turbulence. And, conversely, they believed that sustainable supply chains could help reduce that turbulence by bringing about positive change on both environmental and social fronts.

Both groups of students made a connection between specific actions of global supply chains and how those actions can increase or decrease global environmental and societal turbulence. As one executive MBA student in our survey summarized it: “Business has more capacity to affect change than all the NGOs put together.” Both undergrad and grad students also strongly believed that sustainability considerations should be embedded in business education.

Sustainability content in business education was found to significantly increase global awareness and empathy for both groups, despite different life and work experiences. So it’s equally valued by both MBA students and undergraduates.

Furthermore, with robotics and artificial intelligence predicted to increase societal turbulence by bringing about significant labor market changes, corporations and B schools would be wise to expand and embed sustainability — or face the risk of even more public outcry in the very near future.

Here is the link to the study: https://theconversation.com/how-current-and-future-business-executives-link-sustainability-and-global-strife-114569

OM in the News: Going Green (and Light) for Amazon

“Amazon’s rise is forcing laundry detergents to shrink, writes The New York Times (Dec. 28, 2018). Tide and Seventh Generation have introduced redesigned laundry detergents that are several pounds lighter by cutting down on plastic in their packaging and using less water in their formulas. They’re making the changes to please Amazon: Lighter packaging means it costs less to ship the detergent to shopper’s doorsteps, making each sale more profitable.

Tide has cut down the plastic in packaging

For consumers, the new packaging has been designed to better survive shipping without leaking. The challenge, however, is getting online shoppers to buy detergent that looks nothing like the heavy bottles they are used to. Tide is putting its detergent into a cardboard box, making it 4 pounds lighter than its 150-ounce plastic bottles, but still able to wash the same 96 loads. Seventh Generation went with a compact plastic bottle that’s less than 9 inches tall, rectangular in shape and has no measuring cup.

Amazon may drop products from their website that cost too much to ship. Tide, owned by P&G, says its Eco-Box has 60% less plastic and uses 30% less water in its soap than its 150 ounce bottles. The boxed detergent doesn’t need to be packed in another box: online retailers can just slap an address on it. Seventh Generation, owned by Unilever, spent 3 years developing its smaller bottle. At 1.6 pounds, it is 5 pounds lighter than its standard 100 ounce bottle. It still washes the same 66 loads as the heavier one. The measuring cup was replaced with a cap that automatically squirts out the right amount of detergent needed for a single load of laundry. To make sure the new bottle could withstand delivery, it was sent to a laboratory that mimics the vibrations of Amazon’s warehouse conveyor belts, the bumps of a delivery truck and any accidental drops by warehouse workers.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why is this an OM issue for Amazon?
Why is product design an important part of sustainability?

OM in the News: Plastic Water Bottles Threaten a Crisis

“Bottled water, which recently dethroned soda as America’s most popular beverage, is facing a crisis,” writes The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 13, 2018). A consumer backlash against disposable plastic plus new government mandates and bans in many stores have bottled-water makers scrambling to find alternatives.

Workers sort plastic bottles at a Swiss recycling facility

Evian this year pledged to make all its plastic bottles entirely from recycled plastic by 2025, up from 30% today. It hopes the move will help it regain market share and win over plastic detractors who are already pressuring the makers of straws, bags and coffee cups. There’s a big problem. The industry has tried and failed for years to make a better bottle. (A decade ago, for example, Evian pledged to use 50% recycled plastic in its water bottles by 2009. Nestlé’s plastic water bottles use just 7% recycled material in the U.S., while Coca-Cola’s use 10%, and Pepsi uses 9%.)

Existing recycling technology needs clean, clear plastic to make new water bottles, but low recycling rates and a lack of infrastructure have stymied supply. Danone, Evian’s parent company, is betting its reputation on a new technology that turns old plastic from things like dirty carpets and ketchup bottles into plastic suitable for new water bottles. Less than a third of plastic bottles sold in the U.S. are now collected for recycling, with less than 1% processed into food-grade plastic. The bottled-water industry says using more recycled plastic in bottles will incentivize the collection of old bottles by giving them value. Companies are launching new marketing campaigns, employing more waste pickers and backing new bottle deposit schemes to encourage recycling.

Bottled-water sales have boomed in recent decades amid safety fears about tap water and a shift away from sugary drinks. Between 1994 and 2017, U.S. consumption soared 284% to nearly 42 gallons a year per person. Recently, images of bottles overflowing landfills and threatening sea life have soured consumers. Plastic drink bottles are the 3rd most common type of item found washed up on shorelines—behind cigarette butts and food wrappers.

Classroom discussion questions:

How is this a triple bottom line issue (people, planet, profit)?
What other consumer products are facing similar backlash crises?

OM in the News: Making Packaging Recyclable

Mouth of the Los Angeles River, Long Beach

By now most people are aware of that a lot of plastic is floating in our waterways. One study estimated that 8 million tons of plastics are swept into waterways annually — equivalent to a garbage truckload every minute. In the marine environment, plastics break down into indigestible particles that marine life mistake for food. If no actions are taken, oceans are expected to contain more plastic than fish by 2050.

In an effort to reduce waste, many companies are reviewing their packaging plans, reports IndustryWeek (Oct.11, 2018). And they have been pushed to do this over the past several years by an activist group called As You Sow.This month, food and beverage giant Mondelez International committed to making all of its packaging recyclable by 2025. Mondelez packaging was the fifth most frequently found brand waste collected as part of more than 200 audits done in 42 countries by environmental groups working on plastic pollution.

In 2014, P&G agreed to make 90% of its packaging recyclable, and Colgate-Palmolive pledged to make packaging recyclable in 3 of 4 operating divisions, both by 2020. In 2017, Unilever agreed to a similar commitment by 2025, Target agreed to engage with its suppliers to phase out the use of harmful polystyrene foam for e-commerce packaging, and Unilever agreed to make 100% of its packaging recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025. This year, McDonald’s agreed to stop using polystyrene foam cups globally by year end, and made a bold, unprecedented commitment to recycle all packaging in its restaurants worldwide by 2025. At the same time, Dunkin’ Brands publicly committed to a schedule for phasing out foam coffee cups. And KraftHeinz agreed to make all packaging recyclable, compostable, or reusable by 2025.

Classroom discussion questions:

Why is sustainable packaging an important OM issue?
What more can be done to eliminate plastic garbage?

OM in the News: Setting Inventory on Fire

Every winter the Tuscan workshops of Stefano Ricci, a high-end menswear label, box up the year’s unsold products—from cashmere suits and silk ties to finely woven cotton shirts—and send them off on trucks to be burned. “Destroying unsold inventory is a widely used but rarely discussed technique that luxury companies perform to maintain the scarcity of their goods and the exclusivity of their brands,” reports The Wall Street Journal (Sept. 7, 2018). In Italy and many other countries, they can also claim a tax credit for destroying the inventory.

Last week, British fashion label Burberry thrust the technique into the spotlight by announcing it would immediately stop destroying unsold stock, bowing to pressure from environmental groups who say it is wasteful. The amount of stock Burberry destroys had risen sharply in recent years, from £5.5 million in 2013 to £28.6 million last year. Other high-end brands, however, say destroying inventory is a necessary evil. Goods that end up in outlet stores or in the gray market, priced at a steep discount, contradict the industry’s main sales pitch: that luxury goods command higher prices because they are inherently more valuable. Executives see the destruction of inventory as a service to the customer. Clients don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a suit, only to see the same item a few months later selling at an outlet store for half the price.

Burberry’s announcement was aimed at younger shoppers who are environmentally conscious and, increasingly, a core demographic for the luxury-goods business. Brands across the industry are abandoning fur; imposing animal-welfare standards on their suppliers; and touting their policies for recycling and reducing waste. Burberry said it was also ditching the use of fur.

Classroom discussion questions:

What should Burberry do with unsold inventory?
Why do apparel makers burn their stock?

OM in the News: Levi’s Move to Sustainability

Levi’s first tier of its supply chain, such as this supplier facility in Mexico, will see a new sustainability drive.

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?