Brand Introduces Water-Less Jeans Collection

When it comes to the water used to make Levi’s® Water<Less™ jeans – less is definitely more! The Levi’s® brand today announced the expansion of its Water<Less™ jeans collection for Spring. The average pair of jeans uses 42 liters of water in the finishing process, Levi’s® Water<Less™ products reduce the use of water in the finishing process by up to 96 percent for some styles. The Levi’s® brand has already made more than 13 million Water<Less products and saved more than 172 million liters of water this spring alone.

“How would you approach manufacturing today if you considered all the challenges around us in the world?” said Erik Joule, Senior Vice President of Global Merchandising and Design of the Levi’s® brand. “Levi’s® Water<Less™ is a platform that looks at manufacturing in a different way. It’s really about looking at design as one continuous circle to ensure we reduce the impact on the environment.”

The 172 million liters of water that Levi’s® Water<Less™ products have saved this spring is equivalent to:

•     726,600,812, 8-ounce glasses of drinking water
•     Enough drinking water for 157,000 people for one year

Levi’s® Water<Less™ jeans have reduced the water consumption in the finishing process by making simple changes to the process such as:

•     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
•     Removing the water from the stone wash

In addition to Levi’s® Water<Less™ jeans innovation, the Levi’s® brand has also partnered with Water.org to help raise awareness about vital water issues and bring clean drinking water to people around the world. Nearly a billion people around the globe don’t have access to clean drinking water and the Levi’s® brand is proud to be doing something about it. Beginning March 22 – World Water Day – the Levi’s® brand and Water.org are teaming up for the second consecutive year to launch a new interactive challenge called “Go Water<Less”. The challenge encourages people to “Go Water<Less™” by taking water saving steps to experience what life is like for the one billion people worldwide without clean drinking water. Check it out at www.levi.com/waterless and help provide water to those without.

Levi’s® Water<Less™ finishing process is just one way the Levi’s® brand is working to reduce the environmental impact of its products. Once a pair of Levi’s® jeans is taken home, even more water is used caring for jeans every time they are washed. Recent Levi Strauss & Co. research shows that during the lifecycle of a pair of Levi’s® 501® jeans, the largest water impact comes from the cotton growing process and through the laundry habits of consumers once they care for their jeans at home. As a company, Levi Strauss & Co. is making strides in reducing the water used in these key areas – from supporting more sustainable ways to grow cotton to monitoring how suppliers use water in the manufacturing process.

The company also launched the “Care Tag for Our Planet” campaign, changing the product care tags in Levi’s® jeans to include instructions about ways consumers can reduce the environmental impact of their clothes by washing less, washing in cold water, line drying and donating when no longer needed.