Water Saving Levi'S Levi "S" Jeans Designed

Though starting in 1960, Levis Levi s launched its series of jeans, but it was not until 2007 that it suddenly discovered that "we wasted too much water".

"Every time you make a Levi" s jeans, it costs an average of 42 litres of water. So we asked ourselves a question: what will happen if you don't use water at all? "ErikJoule, a senior vice president of marketing and design at Levi s group, raised such a problem.

Previously, the company did not carefully assess the environmental impact of a product's entire life cycle until it made such a "full body examination" for the 501 series jeans. 3480 liters, this is the life of an ordinary Levi 's501 jeans, which is planted from the seeds of cotton (19180, -120.00, -0.62%) as raw material to the amount of water consumed by consumers eventually abandoned.

After tracking and calculating the water consumption of the 501 series jeans during the whole washing process, Erik and his colleagues found that a lot of water was wasted in the manufacturing process of jeans.

Starting in 2010, they set out to improve the jeans manufacturing process.

For example, in order to show specific washing and doing the old effect, there is a so-called "stone wash" in the standard processing technology of jeans. In short, small stones and jeans are placed in the same closed machine to make full contact between them.

Before that, the machine was filled with water, and the contact between the stone and jeans was carried out in the water. Because there are many jeans to be processed at the same time, the volume of the machine is large, and the same process has to be repeated many times, so the water consumption is huge.

During the test, the researchers found that by mixing the rubber ball and ceramic stone into the machine and changing the filtration system of the machine itself, the stability and the similar effect could be achieved.

Using similar ideas, is water necessary in this process? If there is no participation in water, can other alternatives be found without increasing the cost? Levi 's has reconsidered the relationship between each production link and water, and the team has also found ways to reduce water consumption in other sectors.

For example, by combining the original wet circulation process into a single process, the number of cycles of washing is reduced, thus reducing the water consumption of this process.

In pairs Jeans During the softening process, Levi 's chose some factories and tried to use ozone treatment as an alternative to join the whole process. After wearing the resin bath, hand grinding, baking, shaping and dry stone washing, the jeans can only be put into the ozone machine and cleaned once, so as to reduce the amount of water needed to soften jeans before the official sale.

The jeans produced by these improved technologies have a unified name, Levi 'sWaterLess series. The manufacturing cost of this series of products is almost the same as that of ordinary jeans, but the water consumption is reduced by 28%. Some specific products even consume only 1.5 liters of water, and the water consumption is only 1/25. According to Levi 's data, the WaterLess series sold more than 1 million 500 thousand spring sales in 2011, saving 16 million litres of water.

In 2007, during the investigation of the 501 series of products, the huge amount of water consumption was only one of them. A more important finding is that 49% of the water consumption in the huge water consumption occurs in the cotton growing process, and 45% occurs in the repeated washing processes after the jeans reach the consumers.

Therefore, more important work is how to save water before and after the two links.

So in 2009, in view of the large amount of water wasted in the cotton production process, Levi s joined the better cotton program (BetterCottonInitiative), helping it improve the planting technology of cotton growers around the world and find ways to use less water.

By 2011, the first batch of cotton produced through better cotton production began to supply, and more than 5 million jeans used this kind of cotton in their production - their average water requirement decreased by 5%. Levi 's plans to produce 20% of the total cotton supply by 2015. {page_break}

At the same time, Levi s launched a "ACareTagforourPlanet" campaign for consumers to tell consumers how to clean their clothes with less environmental impact. For example, tell consumers that in the life cycle of a 501 series jeans, 45% of water is consumed on the hands of customers. If consumers can wash them once a week for two weeks, they will reduce water consumption by 50%. At the same time, consumers are encouraged to wash them in cold water and to dry them naturally instead of drying them, and print these correct practices on the label of products. In order to educate consumers, this activity also encourages consumers to donate their old jeans to charity organization GoodWill instead of throwing them away directly.

Levi 's hopes WaterLess series can have a good sales volume, so marketing promotion is needed. Of course, this is for Levi s, a company that is known for its creative advertising and viral marketing, just to show its ability.

In the new series just launched in January 2011, in order to match the promotion of WaterLess concept and product sales, it has uploaded three videos with less than 3 minutes in length on YouTube. One of the explanatory notes under the promotional video produced for the WaterLess series is: "if your jeans can help save up to 16 million litres of water, how do you feel?"

Less than two years later, the WaterLess series produced 29 million related products, saving 360 million litres of water, and also giving consumers more interest in the concept of environmental protection.

Perhaps because of good benefits in the environment and business, Levi s expanded another area of environmental protection in 2012 -- plastic bottles and food plates.

In October 2012, Levi 's launched the new cowboy series WasteLess, which recyclable plastic bottles and food dishes, then reused it.

The practice of Levi s has been welcomed by ordinary people and some environmental organizations. Because if these plastic bottles and food discs are discarded and buried at will, they will not be degraded for a long time and cause damage to the environment. According to data from environmental protection organization Cleanair, only 3.3% of the waste was recycled until 2008. One important reason is that it seems difficult to solve all the problems by relying on government finance. It is a more effective way for enterprises to participate in the process of recycling and reusing some of their waste products by using their own technology.

Levi 's is partnering with partners to collect Brown beer bottles, green soda bottles, water bottles and black food dishes through municipal recycling projects across the United States. These bottles and food disks will be sorted according to color, then crushed into thin sheets and then made into polyester fibers. Next, polyester fibers are blended with cotton fibers, and finally woven with traditional cotton yarn, making Levi 'sWasteLess jeans.

The color of the bottle adds different base colors to the denim fabric, making the final product more colorful.

Levi s hopes to speed up the adoption of new materials to reduce the impact of strong fluctuations in raw materials, especially cotton prices. According to the data from the American Cotton Association, cotton prices were still around 80 cents / pound in early 2010, and then rose all the way, reaching the highest 2.3 US dollars / pound in March 2011, almost 3 times a year ago. The group's revenue growth in the 2011 fiscal year was almost offset by the increase in costs.

The entire WasteLess series will use more than 3 million 500 thousand recycling bottles. Each Levi 'sWasteLess product will include at least 20% recycled materials, or an average of 8 0.34kg to 0.57kg bottles per piece of jeans. Levi "s brand global president JamesCurleigh said," we hope that the waste can be regenerated without loss of quality, comfort or style. "

The first 400 thousand WasteLess products, including men's Denim shirts and jeans, will be Levi 's2013. Spring clothes The series is on sale globally.