Environmentally conscious shoppers have long been aware of how important it is to buy organic cotton. While cotton could be a far more sustainable choice than synthetic fibers, given its renewability, cotton is widely considered the world’s dirtiest crop: conventional cotton cultivation is the reason behind 17.5 percent of global insecticide sales and ten percent of all agricultural chemicals used worldwide, according to the Sustainable Trade Initiative. It also accounts for 2.6 percent of the water footprint for all goods and services consumed globally, and since cotton accounts for 40 percent of the global textile production, that’s no small problem.

But organic cotton, while widely available, is just plain expensive. Organic cotton costs about $2.20 per pound versus about 0.61 cents per pound for conventional, so it’s no surprise that shoppers often balk at the price of organic cotton clothing — and that less than one percent of the world’s cotton production is organic.

Thankfully, an alternative has presented itself in the form of sustainable cotton.

The Better Cotton Initiative was developed in 2005 for the express purpose of making sustainable cotton more accessible to both buyers and  farmers. Farmers who sign on to the Better Cotton Initiative are taught to grow cotton using less pesticides and water than traditional cotton, all the while keeping prices in check for consumers.

“That’s one of the aims, to make Better Cotton mainstream and make it available for the masses,” Ulrika Hvistendahl, sustainability spokeswoman for Ikea, told Bloomberg. Ikea uses one percent of the world’s cotton. Better Cotton made up 70 percent of Ikea’s cotton usage in 2015.

Better Cotton is made with certain Production and Principles Criteria in mind, including minimizing the harmful impact of crop production, efficient water use, conservation of natural habitats, and the promotion of Decent Work. It offers a halfway mark between the strict conditions and high prices of organic cotton and the unsustainable alternative.

Today, Better Cotton accounts for about 12 percent of global cotton production (versus 0.5 percent for organic cotton), and it’s the majority of cotton being used by companies like Nike and H&M.

Levi Strauss & Co. is an Implementing Partner with Better Cotton, reflecting both the company’s sustainability goals and its long history with the cotton industry.

“Becoming a Pioneer Member of BCI this year reflects our company’s commitment since 2009 to transform how cotton is cultivated for our business, our consumers, and the millions of people in some of the world’s poorest countries who depend on it for their livelihood,” Manuel Baigorri, director of global sustainability operations for Levi Strauss & Co, told Triple Pundit.

And Better Cotton continues to grow. The goal is to reach five million farmers and 30 percent of global cotton production by 2020, making sustainable cotton an even more attainable goal for eco-conscious shoppers.

Related on EcoSalon
Follow the ‘Cotton Road’: The Fashion Industry’s Unflattering Supply Chain
Don’t Get Caught Wearing Non-Organic Cotton Around Neil Young
Sustainable Fashion Designers Changing the Game

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Green jean, baby.

In 1873, Levi Strauss & Company invented the first blue jeans, a durable pair of trousers that could hold up to the task of constructing America. The rest is history. Today, Levi’s 501 jeans are the world’s best-selling item of clothing, and the blue jean, whether skinny or bell-bottomed, has been a global fashion staple for as long as most of us can remember.

Levi’s commitment to social responsibility has similar historical clout. During the Great Depression, for instance, Levi’s instituted shorter work weeks to prevent the massive lay-offs that were happening around the country. Levi Strauss factories were racially integrated long before the Civil Rights Act mandated it. And in the 1980s, Levi’s became the first American corporation to publicly address the HIV/AIDS epidemic sweeping the nation. The fight against HIV/AIDS continues to be an issue central to the company’s not-for-profit Levi Strauss Foundation.

In addition to its social responsibility efforts, Levi’s has also been a pioneer in the world of sustainability. Their current eco-efforts are founded on an intensive study of the entire product lifecycle of their best-sellers – the Levi’s 501 jeans and Dockers Original Khakis – conducted in 2007. From this study came the idea to further evaluate – or “E-valuate”, as they call it – 11 of their most popular items using primary data across several categories: contribution to climate change, energy use, renewable energy use, water consumption, land occupation, qualified sustainably grown fiber content, waste generation, materials efficiency, recycled content, land transformation, eutrophication, and restricted substance list adherence.

The Good

From the product lifecycle analysis, Levi’s had a better idea of their strengths and weaknesses as a company. They made the decision to hone in on two key phases – cotton production and consumer use – and they have aimed to reduce their impact in the energy, water, chemicals, and materials aspects of apparel manufacturing.

By making the decision to focus, Levi’s has taken a “do less, but better” approach to sustainability marketing. Over the past five years, they’ve made particularly significant strides in the area of water preservation. In 2010, they introduced the Water<Less jean collection, which used up an average of 28% and up to 96% less water in the finishing process than traditional jeans.

“What’s different about the Water<Less collection is that we’re still using the same materials and techniques to create finishes for our jeans but we’ve substantially reduced water’s role in the equation,” said Carl Chiara, Director of Brand Concepts and Special Projects. “Sometimes, the way to achieve a more sustainable design is to rethink a traditional process and find a way to do it better.”

A typical pair of jeans consumes 919 gallons of water throughout its lifecycle, including what’s needed to irrigate the cotton crop, produce the pant, and wash them at home. For Water<Less jeans, Levi’s made simple changes like reducing the number of washing machine cycles by combining multiple wet cycle processes into a single wet process, incorporating ozone processing into the garment washing, and removing the water from the stone wash.

Levi’s also aims to change how customers use their products, after finding that nearly 60 percent of energy use involved in a product’s lifecycle happens after the jeans are taken home. Their “Care Tag for Our Planet” campaign instructs Levi’s owners to wash less often, use cold water in the cycle, air-dry jeans on a line, and donate old jeans to Goodwill, using innovative methods like a crowdsourced design competition for air-dry solutions.

The Bad

Apart from some backlash over a handful of tasteless ads, Levi’s reputation has been pretty pristine for the past few decades. That’s not to say their conscience is completely clean. In the 1990s, Levi’s was embroiled in a scandal involving factories in the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth territory of the United States located in the Pacific Ocean. Though jeans from these factories were branded “Made in the USA,” they were produced primarily by imported laborers operating under “slavelike” conditions: 12-hour work days, seven-day work weeks, poor living conditions, payment well under the minimum wage, and an atmosphere of fear and control.

The high-profile case spurred Levi’s to establish a workplace code of conduct for its manufacturing suppliers. In 1991, the company released the first version of their Terms of Engagement, which spells out the ethical standards, legal requirements, environmental requirements, and community involvement that all of their suppliers and contractors must agree to and abide by.

The Questionable

Levi’s has a strong track record of operating responsibly, and is considered a pioneer in sustainability by many in the industry. The company has compiled an impressive body of information, literature, and resources surrounding its operations, and has been transparent both with its failings as well as its dedication to improve.

However, much of this information isn’t necessarily translated to Levi’s customers. The other day, I popped into a Levi’s retail store in lower Manhattan, expecting significant promotion around the Water<Less campaign, or the Better Cotton Initiative jeans shipped out just a few months ago. Within the store, I couldn’t find any information concerning sustainability, and when I asked a salesperson for information about their sustainable jeans, she said she had no idea what I was talking about. When I mentioned water, she said that most of the denim in the store was made using 96% less water than usual – a pretty big exaggeration of the truth, which is that the Water<Less process uses on average 28% and up to 96% less water than usual.

It was only when leaving the store that I finally stumbled upon a mention of Levi’s sustainable initiatives: a wooden “Care Tag for the Planet” sandwich board placed just outside the front entrance. Funny enough, the actual care instructions faced the wall, while an advertisement for a 30% off sale had prime real estate.

Levi’s is one of the few major apparel brands making waves in the world of sustainable manufacturing. That’s a major accomplishment, but it also comes with a major responsibility. Levi’s is missing the opportunity to educate a wider audience about the importance of sustainability by leaving its efforts out of its mainstream marketing.

A November New York Times article described a recent scene at Levi Strauss HQ:

After being briefed on the cotton initiative by the sustainability team, the new Chief Marketing Officer, Rebecca Van Dyck nodded her approval, then asked, “But do our customers know?”

They won’t if you don’t tell them.

SEE ALSO:

Behind the Label: H&M’s Conscious Collection

Behind the Label: McDonald’s See What We’re Made Of Campaign

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The balance of sustainable fashion lies within your every purchase.

A year or two ago this article would have been entitled “Fashion Giants Ride Sustainability Wave.” At this stage in the game talking about companies like Wal-Mart, Target, H&M, Gap Inc doing their bit is like greenwashing the chairs on the Titanic. With climate change officially confirmed, fashion companies have an irrefutable responsibility to green their manufacturing and products. But, given the choice, would they?

We often go back and forth discussing the future of the fashion industry here at EcoSalon. I don’t know if the model is broken and needs to be dumped on its stylish head, or if we can fix it with some earnest action and better designed products. Maybe both need to be happening at the same time. You can do both by going ahead and protesting against the concentration of wealth among the privileged few by shopping local fashion from small independent merchants this holiday season, but also check out the fruits of the big brands’ eco initiatives. Their partnerships to minimize energy waste and hazardous chemicals help to encourage eco-fashion at reasonable prices too. Well, some of them.

Here are the latest developments from three of fashion’s well-known brands, Levi’s, Havanianas and Manolo Blahnik.

Levi’s goal is to support the 300 million people currently engaged in cotton farming around the world.

At a cocktail reception last week, Levi Strauss & Co. announced that 2 million pairs of its Denizen and Levi brand jeans now contain a blend of cotton certified by the Better Cotton Initiative. In partnership with other leading brands such as H&M, Adidas, IKEA and organizations like the World Wildlife Fund, Solidaridad and PAN-UK, they’re adhering to the standards of Better Cotton – cotton grown in a way that is less harmful to both the environment and some 40,000 farmers in India, Pakistan, Mali and Brazil. Levi’s executives say their goal is to eventually support the 300 million people engaged in cotton farming around the world.

Sales of Havaianas limited edition “Conservation International” collection have raised approximately $100,000 per year for the Brazilian marine organization.

According to an article in the New York Times yesterday, Havaianas, the Brazilian company that makes about 200 million pairs of flip-flops each year, has just introduced Eco Havaianas that are made from scrap materials incurred during regular production. Other products include Havaianas IPÊ, which designates 7 percent of its revenue for the Institute for Ecological Research in Brazil. Another style, the CI-Brazil, funds projects for the protection of local endangered species and in its first year sold more than 500,000 pairs.

The shoes are sustainable. Is the price?

Fish skin is very much the medium of the moment with Alexander Wang unveiling a collection of sneakers with fish skin detailing for Spring 2012 and Sex in the City favorite, Manolo Blahnik, announcing recently that he was using the “fish leather” in his new range of eco shoes. Made from sustainable tilapia skin, raffia and cork, the collection is part of a collaboration with eco designer Marcia Patmos. Patmos told Womens Wear Daily, “I love the idea of Tilapia skin because it is a by-product of the food industry that would otherwise be discarded, but it’s actually a beautiful material perfect for small leather goods’. The shoes will be sold at Manolo Blahnik shops for $895, WWD reports.

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Adidas’ global strategy includes Better Cotton and a host of other environmental initiatives.

According to Sustainable Business Oregon, Adidas AG  has announced a global strategy to reduce its environmental footprint by 15% by 2015. A big portion of the change will come from utilizing sustainable cotton as part of the Better Cotton Initiative, increasing by 40%  all its cotton consumption by 2015 before going all in by 2018.

Frank Henke, Adidas’ director of social and environmental affairs, told Sustainable Business Oregon in an interview: “We think that supporting this approach helps us to mainstream the sustainability agenda within the global cotton market.”

As a founding member of the BCI, Adidas, as well as other well-known brands including Levi’s, Gap, and Marks And Spencer aim to reduce the usage of pesticides used in traditional cotton farming as well as employ effective means of tending crops with efficient water use, crop rotation and sound working conditions.

Better Cotton is not to be confused with sustainable cotton, fair trade cotton or organic cotton, designations specific to cotton produced without pesticides, genetic modification, or with fair labor involved, yet Better Cotton accounts for 1.3% of global cotton production and includes pieces of each. The main incentive for Adidas to lessen their carbon footprint is to grow cotton in a way that will help alleviate the stress on the local environment and improve the livelihoods and welfare of farming communities.

Other environmental reductions Sustainable Business Oregon highlights include Adidas incorporating a 50 percent reduction in the amount of colors used within the Adidas Sports Performance division by 2015, excluding colors required by clubs outfitted by the brand, A 10 percent to 15 percent drop in energy emissions by product output at core suppliers by 2015, a 20 percent drop in energy consumption, 30 percent reduction in carbon emissions, 20 percent water savings per employee and 25 percent waste reduction per employee by 2015.

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