Circular Economy

We are committed to playing a central role in the apparel industry’s journey toward a circular future — one where materials are used and reused safely, where ecosystems are protected and regenerated, and where people have good work and livelihoods. This means making products with their next use in mind. It means we no longer talk about end of life, but about end of use. And it means evolving each part of the apparel supply chain toward a circular economy — starting with our own practices as we work to become more circular ready.

Circularity Challenges

Moving to a circular business model is not without its challenges. For instance, some promising new fibers that support circularity may cost more or be less durable. Safer chemicals sometimes pose scaling challenges, are not as easy for suppliers to use, or do not necessarily achieve the same outcomes as the chemical they are meant to replace. And while many suppliers are eager to partner with us on more sustainable innovations, a supply chain spread across many countries makes it harder to quickly apply new approaches everywhere. We are tackling many of these challenges through sustainable design practices, through our Eureka Innovation Lab, and through collaboration with other brands and leading organizations.

The Power of Collaboration

By participating with organizations like Fashion for Good, which funds and scales sustainable innovation, and circular apparel initiatives like the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Jeans Redesign project, we are helping to realign the industry and create economies of scale. We are also working with industry groups such as the Policy Hub and the European Branded Clothing Alliance, to inform European Union policy that supports the transition to a more circular, less resource-intensive apparel sector.

In 2021, some of our collaborative projects addressed the challenges of plastics, sorting technologies for recycling garments, fiber transparency and traceability, and the use of plant-based indigo as a substitute for synthetic dye in denim. We also continued our work with suppliers on solutions to challenges around water use, emissions and worker well-being.

Our Circular Strategy

By its very nature, circular fashion is intended to create a closed loop. But it has to start somewhere. For us, circularity starts with pioneering principles and fundamental philosophies that guide our ideation and design from the earliest stages. By integrating circularity at the design stage, we can develop products that last, can be repaired if necessary and can be reused or recycled — building a more sustainable and circular system. When designed with consideration for not just their next wear, but also their next life, our products can help transition the apparel industry from the take-make-waste model to one capable of restoring resources.

Our merchandising, design, product development and marketing teams have embraced a circular mindset that aligns with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Make Fashion Circular vision. This shift in mindset is a critical first step to understanding the necessary changes and innovations that may be required to set forth a path forward for bringing circular products to the market after 2026.

Used more – kept at the highest value at all times

A pair of Levi’s® jeans is designed to stand the test of time, to be worn for years if not decades, to be repaired or refashioned if needed, and to be passed along to new wearers, all while contributing to the owner’s authentic self-expression rather than the waste stream. We are also pursuing innovation to shift from the industry’s sell-what-you-make approach to a make-what-you-sell approach that optimizes resource use and minimizes excess inventory. Note that “highest value” refers to keeping materials in use, either as a product or, when that can no longer be used, as components or raw materials so nothing becomes waste and the intrinsic value of products and materials is retained.

Made to be made again – designed so they can be reused, remade, recycled and safely composted

We are designing and producing more clothes that are made to be made again, using safe, recycled and renewable inputs. We define “safe” to mean products that pass all recognized international product quality and safety tests and meet Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) wastewater standards in alignment with the Ellen Macarthur Foundation vision for a circular economy. This also includes working with other brands, partners, platforms and customers to scale programs and achieve lasting change.

Made from safe and recycled or renewable inputs – to protect the health of people and ecosystems

We are committed to making sure our primary materials are third-party preferred or certified more sustainable and have launched initiatives to support use of recycled or recyclable raw materials like Circulose® fiber.* At the same time, Screened Chemistry and other elements of our safer chemicals program work towards eliminating hazardous chemicals in the manufacture of our products.
*Circulose® is a registered trademark of Re: NewCell AB.

We have begun collaborating across design and manufacturing to codify a detailed strategy in 2026 to work towards being circular ready. This will mark the first milestone in our holistic approach to circularity, in which we advance work already underway, implement other aspects of the three pillars of the Make Fashion Circular framework and continue industry advocacy to drive policies and shifts that can catalyze progress at scale and create a more conducive environment for a truly circular economy. Concurrently, we will strive to foster positive social impacts in the supply chain designed to ensure a just transition to a circular economy.

Steps we took in 2021 included launching important product innovations like our circular 501® jeans, continuing to explore repair and recommerce options that can extend the life of our products, increasing engagement with both Fashion for Good and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and public discussion of our perspective and priorities in the media and other forums. We also launched our “Buy Better, Wear Longer” marketing campaign, which is continuing in 2022 and aims to engage consumers in a frank, urgent discussion of overproduction and overconsumption in the apparel industry.

Made to Be Used More

We are leveraging the durability, quality and timeless style of our products to help consumers use their garments more and longer. Our SecondHand recommerce platform allows people to find popular vintage styles. They can also repair, repurpose and customize their jeans or Trucker jackets to last a lifetime at our in-store Tailor Shops. We also partner with other organizations to support upcycling of our products.

As we push ourselves to create more sustainable products at scale, we will also encourage consumers to keep them as long as possible before passing them on to friends or relatives, returning them to a Levi’s® store, updating them for a new look, upcycling them into new items, or recycling them when the time is right and the infrastructure is in place.

Durability and Reuse: Standing the Test of Time

Across our brands, we use a host of innovations and insights to help our products stand the test of time. Everything we make is rigorously tested for durability and designed to nurture the connection consumers have had with our products for more than a century and a half.

Innovation for Longer-Lasting Products

Dockers® uses a Stain Defender technology that is free from perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) commonly used in our industry, while still allowing water-based stains to bead up and roll off. This stain defender does not dramatically change the feel of the fabric and works with the Dockers® existing 98% cotton pant. With fewer stains and fewer subsequent washes, these garments are expected to last longer.

Tailor Shop – Repair, Reimagine, Recycle

One of the unique aspects of denim is that denim is a blank canvas for the wearer to make their own. The Levi’s® Tailor Shop concept was designed with that in mind. Grounded in the Levi’s® brand heritage of craftsmanship and commitment to authentic self-expression, Tailor Shops allow fans to get beloved pieces repaired or updated with their own personal stamp. Tailor Shops reflect the emotional connection of the wearer to their cherished garment — and to the brand — while unlocking creativity through customized pieces. Some Levi’s® stores have a Tailor Shop, and our tailors have also taken their talents to festivals to reach customers outside the retail world.

Expert tailors take well-worn or torn pieces and rework them, add embroidery, paint or patches to customize an item, turn shorts into wallets or patches, even sew non-Levi’s® items like a baby blanket or other keepsake onto a Trucker jacket. Tailor Shop content is available on the Levi’s® blog for DIYers who want to learn from Levi’s® master tailors how to embellish, repair or upcycle their denim. In 2021, we introduced Tailor Shop Virtual Workshops so fans could experience the benefits of repairing and repurposing garments without visiting a store.

Levi’s® SecondHand and SecondChance

Buying used garments instead of new saves water, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and cuts waste. The Levi’s® SecondHand platform aims to help consumers do just that. Levi’s® SecondHand makes vintage items available to consumers and invites them to join us in a more sustainable future. The platform gives jeans, jackets and shorts another life, while providing consumers with the confidence they’re getting something that’s still in great shape and that consumes a fraction of the natural resources a new garment would require.

In 2021, we expanded the program in Europe, launching SecondChance in Germany. During the year, we collected products at eight Levi’s® stores in Germany, offering consumers discount vouchers on future purchases in exchange for Levi’s® clothing in good condition. We began offering these items for sale through SecondChance in 2022.

In addition, if jeans are too worn or damaged to sell again, consumers can still drop them off at a Levi’s® store for recycling and receive a gift card toward a future purchase. Our partner Blue Jeans Go Green then converts that used denim into insulation for buildings, a greener alternative to standard insulation.

Dockers® Vintage

This curated selection of unique, pre-loved and pre-worn Dockers® pieces from the 1980s, 1990s and beyond gives Dockers fans access to some of our historic styles. Each garment has been cleaned, restored and repaired, ready for its next life. The ongoing project is a collaboration between Dockers® and Transnomadica, a vintage archive, which helps us source authentic Dockers® vintage clothing for consumers.

Made to Be Made Again

We continue advancing design and material innovations to make clothes that can be made again, using safe, recycled and renewable inputs that contribute to a more circular product cycle. This includes:

• Ensuring our suppliers adhere to the Screened Chemistry protocols designed to support the health and safety of supply chain workers, promote healthier water systems and help us work toward the goal of safe compostable materials at the end of our products’ useful lives.
• Using responsibly sourced fibers like organic cotton and manmade cellulosic fibers. We also believe that third-party preferred or certified more sustainable fibers make a better quality garment.*
• Revolutionizing the use of water-saving hemp to make it soft and comfortable like cotton.
• Partnering with innovators like Re: NewCell on state-of-the-art fibers made from post-consumer recycled jeans and other responsible components.
• Extending our WellThread® design innovations to our mainline collections, such as with the circular 501® jeans. This is part of our ongoing work to reinvent the total concept-to-consumer value chain that prioritizes sustainability and circularity along the product life cycle.

*In this context, “preferred” is based on the Textile Exchange, which defines a preferred fiber or material “as one which results in improved environmental and/or social sustainability outcomes and impacts in comparison to conventional production.” 

WellThread® – Research, Development and Innovation

Our continued circularity work builds on the achievements and breakthroughs of the Levi’s® WellThread® collection, which is essentially a living research and development lab for sustainable design and innovation. WellThread® subscribes to four prevailing use principles:

• Materials and processes that prioritize environmental stewardship
• Production in facilities that support worker well-being
• Design that promotes durability and celebrates timelessness
• Garment engineering that enables efficient material recovery and reuse

Initially, the WellThread® collection was a way to push the sustainable boundaries of how we make our clothes. Today, it is a vehicle for continued progress with which we work through design and manufacturing challenges to create more innovative products that incorporate multiple sustainability attributes.

Recently that progress has come in the form of exciting innovations and styles, including natural indigo dye techniques, post-consumer recycled fibers, more organic and in-transition cotton and the recyclability of every WellThread® garment. WellThread® innovations are helping us make sustainably produced, fully recyclable garments a reality, and transition them into our mainline products as we have done with the circular 501® jeans. Among current and future focus areas are work with natural plant-based dyes and projects related to transitional cotton — cotton on its way to becoming organic cotton in a farming and soil management process that takes about three years.

State-of-the-Art Digital Denim Sampling

The Eureka Innovation Lab has accelerated its deep dive into digital prototyping and renderings that can minimize or eliminate sample production and the associated waste. Previously, digital rendering had not been viable for denim because it failed to accurately capture the character of the fabric on a screen. Our Eureka team developed the technological infrastructure through which new styles and finishes can be shared with buyers and consumers can see what products could look like. By coming up with a groundbreaking way to visualize a finish — or an entire product — that is photorealistic, we can virtually convey what it’s like before it has to exist physically.

This new digital sampling platform is accessible to suppliers, merchandisers, third-party retailers and others, and reduces the number of physical product iterations needed. In turn, this preserves the resources that would have been required to make samples, shortens the time to market, and saves money for us and our suppliers. Coupling this approach with improved AI-based forecasting that allows us to better predict who will buy what, where and when, offers the potential to greatly cut down on waste associated with overproduction. As we continue to demonstrate the technology’s adaptability and value, we hope to expand its use significantly.

F.L.X. – Future Finish®

Project F.L.X., also launched by the team at Eureka, is a 3D digital design and laser finishing technology that enables a more responsive supply chain while vastly reducing the number of chemicals needed for the finishing process. The technology has also been incorporated into our Future Finish® customization service, which offers consumers a new level of denim personalization. Digital sampling, F.L.X. and Future Finish® together comprise a suite of digital design and manufacturing tools that are helping to change the prevailing apparel model from selling what we make to making what we sell, based on a much clearer picture of consumer tastes, with a production platform that is far more agile and much closer to the consumer. This helps us better deliver the same timeless, built-to-last products consumers want most, when they want them, saving resources and reducing waste in the process.

Made from Safe and Recycled or Renewable Inputs

LS&Co. joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Jeans Redesign project in 2021 to help drive greater circularity in the denim world. The initiative provides guidelines for brands and suppliers to make jeans that can be used more, are designed to be made again, and are made of safe, recycled and renewable inputs — the three fundamentals of circular apparel.

The Jeans Redesign guidelines already align with LS&Co.’s minimum requirements for denim jean durability, and set additional standards for material health, recyclability and traceability to support a circular economy. The project’s commitments are in step with our WellThread® collection’s established design methodology — while challenging us to deliver increased unit volume and a more transparent reporting protocol. Although our circular 501® jeans were not developed as part of our work with the Jeans Redesign project, they conform to Jeans Redesign, and we plan to develop additional jeans that comport with the Jeans Redesign standards as part of our commitment as a participant.

And while Jeans Redesign applies only to denim, our non-denim brands are doing their part to support responsible materials and product recycling when the time comes. At Dockers®, a continued embrace of recycled fibers complements our prioritization of natural fibers over synthetics.

From supporting organic cotton farming, to sourcing recycled fibers and more sustainable manmade cellulosic fibers, to incorporating next-generation fibers like Circulose®, we are working to consider the entire product life cycle in our raw material sourcing.* Read more about these innovations in Sustainable Fibers.
*Circulose® is a registered trademark of Re: NewCell AB.

We also have been working to remove hazardous chemicals from our supply chain for more than two decades. We issued a Restricted Substances List in 2000. We achieved zero discharge of hazardous chemicals for strategic wet finishing suppliers and have shared the Screened Chemistry approach with others in the industry. Read more about our leadership in Safer Chemicals.

We are making progress toward our goal of 100% renewable electricity in all company-operated facilities by 2025. Read more in Climate Action.

Because water is consumed throughout the apparel value chain — from cotton cultivation and garment manufacture to consumer use and recycling — a circular approach demands that we make sure production, supply chain practices and technologies all support efficient water use. The LS&Co. Water Action Strategy builds on our water Recycle & Reuse Standard for suppliers, a key piece of our Water<Less® program, which in turn drives other innovations in our products and our suppliers’ processes. Read more in Water Stewardship.

Consumers – Sharing the Journey to Circular

Everywhere we operate, whether in our stores or online, we aim to give our fans a connected experience. We understand their passion for our iconic brands and want to honor that passion in every interaction — whether they’re buying a new pair of jeans, reworking a beloved Trucker jacket in a Tailor Shop, or looking for a soft pair of secondhand Levi’s® jeans.

Buy Better, Wear Longer – an Ethos and a Call to Action

The Levi’s® “Buy Better, Wear Longer” marketing campaign, launched in 2021, aims to raise awareness about overproduction and overconsumption, and to deliver a call to action — for ourselves, our consumers and our industry — to be more intentional about how we design, make, sell and buy clothes. Through “Buy Better, Wear Longer,” consumers around the world can come together to rethink fashion production and consumption. Positive social sentiment for the “Buy Better, Wear Longer” campaign in 2021 was strong, up to 87% positive on any given day, signaling that our consumers are aligned with the message and interested in contributing.

Similarly, the Dockers® Waves for Water initiative invites consumers to help fund clean water filters for communities in need. Collectively, consumer connection campaigns like these reflect our sustainability ethos, celebrate innovative products and invite consumers to participate in our shared journey to a sustainable future.

Partners in Sustainability

Our consumer surveys indicate growing concerns about sustainability issues like climate change — concerns that have increased since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The action consumers most want companies to take in order to enable sustainable living is to make more affordable products that are better for people and the planet. In the majority of countries where LS&Co. surveys consumers, they associate Levi’s® with products that are durable and high quality. This recognition positions us to meet consumer expectations with products designed to last, that can be worn again and again, and can ultimately be recycled where the appropriate infrastructure exists, rather than discarded.

Additional 2021 consumer research conducted in partnership with GlobeScan and other leading companies in 31 markets showed that people around the world are open to adopting more sustainable and healthy behaviors, but often do not know where to start. A majority, 73%, indicated they want to significantly reduce their impact on the environment and 75% are very or somewhat interested in companies making products from recycled materials and/or that are fully recyclable, as well as restoring nature and the environment. LS&Co. also continues to sponsor the annual GlobeScan Healthy & Sustainable Living Study — one of many key studies from which we draw to learn more about consumer perspectives and behaviors when it comes to sustainable fashion and circular economy approaches.

Awareness and Transparency through Labeling

As the apparel industry offers more garments labeled “sustainable,” it can be harder for consumers to determine which innovations are truly making a difference. One way we enhance awareness is through labeling, including complying with applicable regulations regarding country of origin, manufacturer identification address or code, care instructions and fiber content and size, as required in certain countries.

Our products include what we call a Care Tag for the Planet — labels sewn into our products to encourage washing less frequently, using cold water, line drying and donating when no longer needed. Our e-commerce site also offers sustainable product care tips. Likewise, LS&Co. products that include cottonized hemp, organic cotton, and innovative fibers like REFIBRA™ and Circulose® include labels identifying those environmentally friendly fibers.*
*REFIBRA™ is a trademark of Lenzing Aktiengesellschaft. Circulose® is a registered trademark of Re: NewCell AB.

View our “Buy Better, Wear Longer” and Water<Less® innovation videos.

What’s Next – Circular Economy

As we continue our progress toward circular readiness, we are working at both a large scale, such as collaborating with Fashion for Good, and a smaller scale, as we’re doing by aiming to increase our take-back offerings and exploring partnerships to drive used products through more circular channels. Building on the strong foundations provided by WellThread,® Water<Less®, Screened Chemistry and other initiatives, we are working to identify and implement more sustainable practices — and reflect a circularity mindset — in product development. We are committed to sourcing third-party preferred or certified materials and incorporating pioneering fibers into our mainline collections, such as 501® jeans and Red Tab™. We still need to look more holistically at the entire product life cycle from agriculture and production, to packaging, shipping, consumer use and reuse.

To this end, in 2022 we will continue our participation in a Fashion for Good project that aims to understand the different textile waste streams in India, including those generated outside the country and shipped into the country, with the eventual aim of determining how to use pre- and post-consumer textile waste in India. Importantly, we plan to conduct a social impact assessment of textile recycling, which will give the apparel industry valuable information about both the environmental and social impacts of textile recycling.

We will work through our store network to connect directly with consumers and increase reuse and textile-to-textile recycling opportunities for used denim. Our plans for 2022 include growing our in-store program, which incentivizes customers to turn in unwanted jeans, delivering a more global program that is available to even more of our customers. We will explore programs with new recycling partners to build out our vision of circularity by creating channels for used denim to be reworn, recycled or downcycled, diverted from landfill, and recognized as a resource for a circular economy.

Other future focus areas include work with natural plant-based dyes and projects related to transitional cotton — cotton on its way to becoming organic cotton in a farming and soil management process that takes about three years. As an initial step, we reached out to a mill in our supply chain that has direct relationships with smallholder cotton farmers. We began sponsoring education on organic cotton with farmers and offered them a purchase guarantee during the transitional process.

At the same time, the Levi’s® and Dockers® brands are pursuing reliable and scalable natural dyes, some of which also save water. Additional work with partners to continue evolving our fiber portfolio includes understanding how best to incorporate in-transition cotton. In these areas and others, we don’t yet have all the solutions to the challenges of creating a truly circular apparel and less resource-intensive value chain. But we will forge ahead with our competitors, partners and customers to find them.