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PHOTO: DERO SANFORD/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (DAVID HUGHES WITH HIS SONS NOLEN & DAVE) OVERVIEW Apparel manufacturers are working together on creating an index The idea is to give manufacturers a common way to look at environment and human-rights impacts when designing their products. Sustainability has proven to be a powerful motivator for consumers LINKS:
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How Green Are Your Jeans?
By CHRISTINA BINKLEY Are your Nikes greener than your Adidas? There will soon be an answer to this question, if apparel companies have their way.
DIRTY LAUNDRY The coalition of companies participating in the index includes a broad swath of the apparel industry—names such as Levi Strauss, Nike and Target, Brooks Sports and Adidas, as well as outdoor-wear makers like Timberland, REI, Columbia Sportswear and Patagonia. The idea is to give manufacturers a common way to look at environment and human-rights impacts when designing their products. And if it helps them sell a few pairs of jeans, well, that wouldn’t hurt either. Sustainability has proven to be a powerful motivator for consumers an effective way to lure shoppers to try new products. Apparel doesn’t sound like a dirty industry, but making clothes has huge consequences on the environment. Tanning leather often involves toxic chemicals. Making synthetic fabrics such as polyester uses large amounts of crude oil and other materials that release volatile compounds. Cotton-growing is water-intensive—and cotton is often shipped from the U.S. and Europe to Asia to make thread and fabric, then shipped elsewhere for cutting and elsewhere again for sewing. Some of our clothes have circled the globe twice by the time they arrive in stores. Increasingly, environmentalists believe we should also count the costs at the other end of clothing’s life: the garbage dump. Americans tossed out 12.4 million tons of textiles in 2008. Our consumption habits were a lot more sustainable back in 1960, when we tossed out only 1.8 million tons of textiles. The Eco Index, which is basically a software tool any apparel maker can use, poses a series of questions to companies on their environmental and labor practices—some of which require answers from the companies’ suppliers. It then uses the answers to calculate a score, representing a percentage of a perfect score. The questions cover every step in the life of a product, from raw-material production to manufacturing, shipping, and even disposal. For instance, Levi’s gets points for having a recycling program that lets consumers drop off their old jeans at Goodwill, and Timberland earns points for using leather tanneries that have wastewater-purifying systems. Points are lost for using bulky packing material or transporting goods long distances. The Eco Index also includes estimates of how consumers will wash and eventually dispose of their clothes. Some of the points are awarded for changes with questionable impact. For example, Levi’s gets credit for its care tags that ask consumers to wash their jeans in cold water, line-dry and donate to Goodwill. DONATE TO GOODWILL Energy Star ratings, which were created by the government in 1992, are also estimates, but they have become an international standard for rating the energy efficiency of appliances and electronics. For the same thing to happen with the Eco Index, it must be made available to shoppers at the point of sale, and it could take time for the various companies to figure out how to present the index to consumers. Levi’s vice president of social and environmental sustainability, Michael Kobori, says the tool will be available “as soon as we can get everybody to agree” on how to publish and communicate it. For now, “it’s a tool for a company to use to make a better choice,” says Amy Roberts, an executive at the Outdoor Industry Association. To use the index, companies must pepper their suppliers with questions about materials use, labor standards, and recycling. These suppliers get points or ratings such as “gold,” “silver” and bronze.” Timberland started seeking out leather tanneries with more sustainable standards, says Betsy Blaisdell, Timberland’s senior manager of environmental stewardship. “I now have tanneries fighting over the points needed to get a silver rating,” she says. As part of its participation in the Eco Index, Levi’s did a separate internal study of its own practices. As a result, Levi’s changed its transportation routes last year to make them more efficient and reduced carbon emissions by 700 metric tons. Levi’s also cut back on packaging, allowing only three pieces of labeling with the jeans—a back-pocket tag, a size sticker and a price tag. Brooks redesigned its shoe boxes after finding that its score wasn’t as high as it had hoped. To raise its 40% raiting, Brooks got rid of moisture-absorbing silica bags, which turned out to be ineffective, and stopped stuffing the insides of shoes with tissue paper, among other changes. As an added benefit, the “green” changes reduced the cost of the shoebox by 38%. Now the company is planning a recycling program for the boxes to boost its score even more.
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