When Jeans Turn Green
By Karin Rives
Staff Writer
Washington - Social change can begin in different places, such as in a pair of jeans.
In early January 2011, jean giant Levi Strauss & Co. rolled out a collection of pants that the company says requires just a fraction of the water normally used during production. The initiative is part of a broader campaign under way at Levi's to reduce the company's greenhouse gas emissions by 11 percent between 2007 and 2011, and to shrink the overall environmental footprint of its global supply chain.
The jean maker is also collaborating with other like-minded companies to foster conservation, and is pushing its environmental message directly to customers.
"Environmental degradation and climate change create business challenges for our company around the world," Michael Kobori, Levi's vice president of social and environmental sustainability, told America.gov.
"Cotton, like other agricultural commodities, is at risk for crop failure and reduced yield as temperatures rise and water shortages occur, creating business risk and uncertainty around cotton availability, quality and pricing," he said. "This is no small concern for a company where cotton makes up more than 95 percent of our products."
Changes such as those made by Levi Strauss & Co. increasingly are becoming the norm for large corporations. Climate Counts, a nonprofit organization that rates 90 of the world's largest companies based on their environmental initiatives, reported in December 2010 that average corporate climate commitment rose 14 percent in 2010.
Climate Counts rates the companies on a scale of 1-100, using 22 criteria to gauge their emissions reductions, support for climate policies, and customer communication. Since scoring began in 2007, the average commitment has risen from 31 to 50.1, with corporations such as Nike, Siemens, Unilever, and Levi's landing well above that.
"There's an emerging top tier of innovating companies leading on climate," Wood Turner, the group's executive director, said when the most recent score card was released. Caring about the environment, he said, "is now the norm for well-managed, forward-thinking business."
40 LITERS OF WATER SAVED FOR EVERY PAIR OF JEANS
The 1.5 million jeans in Levi's 2011 spring collection known as "Water
The first round of Water
The jeans also carry the green product-care tags that Levi's began sewing onto its pants in 2010. They urge consumers to wash their pants less often and in cold water, to line dry jeans rather than throw them in a tumble dryer, and to donate the pants to charity when they're no longer needed - all with the goal of saving energy and natural resources.
"We spend a lot of time thinking about how customers wear our clothes. Now we have to spend just as much time thinking about how our customers care for them," Levi's Chief Executive Officer John Anderson explained in a 2010 speech at a California university. "If we could encourage customers to wash their jeans less frequently, that would reduce the climate, energy and water impact all at once."
Another looming challenge for Levi's: Its products are manufactured in some 34 countries worldwide, many of which are located in the developing world where climate change is already beginning to have an effect.
The United Nations-led Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said that developing countries are most vulnerable to rising global temperatures because of their limited resources. By 2020, for example, up to 250 million people in Africa - a continent where Levi's obtains cotton - could face water shortages, the panel says.
So it's incumbent on the business community to take action, Kobori said. "We know it's vital to understand and reduce the impact our products have on the environment," he said.
Beginning next year, Levi's will start to use cotton obtained under the Better Cotton Initiative. Funded by a coalition of companies and nonprofit organizations, the initiative is working to reduce water and pesticide usage at cotton fields in Brazil, India, Pakistan and West and Central Africa.
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. )
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