Making Strides Through BCI
By cutting his water use in half and growing his profits, Muhammad was able to send his daughters back to school.
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Roughly 91 percent of our products are cotton-based, so the sustainability of our cotton supply is critical to our business. We don’t grow cotton ourselves, but given how much we use, we have a stake in how that cotton is grown and how it impacts the places where it is planted.
We work with the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) and other partners to help farmers grow cotton more sustainably, reducing water and chemical use and increasing yields. We’re committed to using 100 percent more sustainable cotton from BCI growers, organic cotton farms, or recycled cotton suppliers by 2020, and we are well on our way to making it happen.
We think about other natural fibers and synthetics in the same way, striving to source responsibly, with the smallest possible footprint, and looking to innovate wherever possible to introduce more sustainable fabrics and fiber strategies into our supply chain.
Sixty-eight percent of the water used for a pair of jeans comes from growing cotton.
Cotton from Better Cotton Initiative growers requires 14 percent less water than conventional cotton.
Cotton cultivation represents 10 percent of carbon emissions across our total value chain.
Continue to move towards sourcing all our cotton from BCI growers, organic cotton farms and recycled cotton suppliers by 2020.
Traditional cotton growing methods involve large quantities of fertilizer and pesticides.
Work with BCI to reduce fertilizer and pesticide use at the earliest stages of the supply chain and work through our own Screened Chemistry program to identify and remove harmful chemical compounds from our processes.
Farmers often grow cotton on small plots of land while facing cost, resource and yield challenges that outdated practices cannot meet.
Work with BCI to help farmers meet the challenges they face by using less water and chemicals while achieving higher yields.
We were one of the first apparel companies to join the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), which trains farmers to farm more efficiently, creating greater outputs (more cotton) with fewer inputs (water and chemicals), which means a smaller environmental footprint and better margins for them. We intend to source 100 percent of our cotton from BCI growers, organic cotton farms, or recycled cotton suppliers by 2020 (we were at 67 percent at the end of 2018). Learn more about BCI.
Cottonized HempThe Levi’s® Wellthread™ collaboration with Outerknown features Water<Less® techniques and a single fiber-cotton designed with a future state of closed loop recycling in mind. The 2019 collection features the first-ever commercialized use of “cottonized hemp,” which feels like cotton but uses far less water and land to grow. Learn more.
EvrnuWe’re partnering with Evrnu to develop denim made from recycled cotton, because jeans crafted with at least 15 percent recycled cotton can save as much water as the entire manufacturing process consumes. It’s a way to harvest cotton from closets rather than fields, and to dramatically reduce our reliance on water. Learn more.
TencelWe are experimenting with Tencel, a fabric derived from sustainably sources wood. It has a significantly lower carbon footprint, uses 20 percent less water than cotton and affords a 99.5 closed loop system.
