I think this is fascinating.
Levi jeans did a study of the environmental impact of jeans through the entire life cycle of a pair. They found nearly 60% of climate energy (whatever that really means) comes from consumer use - especially drying in a clothes dryer - rather than production. So, they are sponsoring a contest to design cool clotheslines for people who live in the suburbs where traditional clotheslines are banned.
The whole thing seems rather silly and trite to me - like complaining about the poor service in the Titanic dining room as the boat is sinking - but I do like their diagram on the life cycle of a jean. I think it's a good concept and it's neat to see a consumer-driven company attempting to educate folks about consumerism.
David Korten's Keynote Presentation Now Online
15 years ago
This greatly disheartens me. I don't details details on that page that would indicate their assumptions. For example, they say that consumers can reduce 50% of impact of the jeans by washing cold water and line drying. My 2 issues there are 1) my jeans get really f'ed up working on the truck and in the yard, and cold water can't do it, and 2) Hot water washing has a substantially greater impact than drying.
ReplyDeleteThis is worse than the metrics the "green team" at work feeds us about saving 800 gallons of oil a year by switching out 3 light bulbs - maybe the government should have an energy task force that does non-biased reviews... who can believe any of it anymore?
Are you baiting me with the government energy task-force? Because the government is so very objective - do you know about Bush and the salmon?
ReplyDeleteI thought their use of the specific phrase "climate impact" made the whole thing suspicious. As if they decided what their campaign would be and then looked for a slice of info that would support it. In general, I am so very over statistics. I found the information you shared about your heating / energy use to be far more valuable than most things I've heard from other sources.
I still totally dig the concept of the life cycle in encouraging consumers to think about the whole process involved in their buying a pair of jeans. And I think it's cool Levi's took the initiative to do it, rather than an advocacy nonprofit.
Sorry to dishearten. :(
Yes, I was baiting a little. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteThis is good discussion by us but bad analysis by Levi's, and that is all that is disheartening. But in general, the press tends to pick up on these things and lash out, like they did at firms who sell carbon credits to airline passengers a few years ago. So, while yes Levi's marketing dept showed some initiative in terms of total costs (i guess), it was in the end just marketing.
Oh, and one other thing: I understand Levis are mostly made in Egypt. I have to wonder if their LCA takes into account to total environmental impact of growing cotton there; ie irrigation in the Nile valley. These are the details that go into accountable, real life cycle cost analyses.
I think its pretty creative. Maybe it is just marketing, but its also public education and awareness -- and from that perspective its a step in the right direction. In my opinion, not every initiative has to be the end all/be all solution or have the kind of outcomes that would make a company truly "green" or have zero impact. Of course the closer they strive to that goal, great. But in terms of bringing this kind of issue to the minds of their consumers-- good for them- at least thats a start. And from that, how much more detailed or what kind of technical jargon would you use when communicating to Joe Public besides phrases like "climate impact" (I would guess the majority of jean-wearing citizens would begin to roll their eyes back in their heads if they spelled out any actual technical findings of their "third party" study). What I am more interested in is how they publicize this... Joanna did you see an ad for this somewhere or just happen to come across it on a blog?
ReplyDeleteI saw it on the blog "craft," which I learned about from Carrie.
ReplyDeletehttp://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2010/06/levis_care_to_air_contest.html
My concern about the use of "climate impact" mostly comes from thinking that is only a slice of the full environmental impact of jeans. Like, they picked climate because then they don't have to account for the pesticides used in cotton production, or any pollution from dying the fabric. Obviously, Levi's wouldn't market their pollution, so it seems they had to find a stat where they could show a greater impact from consumer use, than production.
But I agree, it's a neat start, and I haven't really seen any other companies present a full cycle look at the impact of their product.