Levi Strauss is working to bring greater sustainability to the global production and consumption cycle for jeans. Jeans are involved in the consumption of over 900 gallons of water, from the cotton fields to the laundromat. Given changes in weather patterns which have correlated with climate change along with conflicts arising over the ownership of scarce resources, developing better processes and practices for growers, especially for those living in arid regions, is paramount. By helping implement new irrigation systems and farming techniques, Levi Strauss has enabled growers to obtain higher yields and better cotton.

On the consumption side, the task is much more formidable: how does one convince consumers to engage in more sustainable behavior? In this case, how can consumers be convinced to wash their jeans less and thereby consume less water? Part of the answer lies in generating public awareness. Most consumers are unaware that Levi Strauss has committed to more sustainable jean production, and further, more can be done to bring transparency to the Levi Strauss supply chain. Levi Strauss is planning on a video campaign, but we, at Bit of Good, feel more can be done to facilitate direct interaction with consumers and Levi Strauss products, particularly in providing more information and transparency to each pair of jeans made, both in store and on the web. A possible example of such an effort is the campaign launched by Starbucks to bring greater transparency to its coffee supply chains, as discussed in a previous post on Bit of Good.

We believe these aspects of product transparency and consumer engagement across the entire life cycle of goods will continue to rise in importance, especially as the world becomes hotter and more crowded while resources become all the more scarce. And we hope more companies will follow similar initiatives to that of Levi Strauss in helping make global production and consumption more sustainable.

Kristofer Gryte is the Founder and CEO of Emaji. He is a philosopher, scientist, and all-around techie who has developed an integrated software package for robust, automated data analysis. Outside of his research, he helps consult a Kenyan MFI on improving operations. He is currently a DPhil candidate at Oxford University mining data and using statistical analysis to study DNA-protein dynamics. He lives in London.