The apparel industry has earned its bad reputation when it comes to waste. Back in 2017, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation captured attention for noting that a garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or incinerated every second somewhere in the world. And aggregate textile waste is estimated to increase by about 57 million additional tons of waste annually by 2030.
We have opportunities to help turn this tide, reducing waste in our supply chain and our own operations, and making it more convenient for consumers to change their own consumption and recycling patterns. This includes developing more circular product designs that use recycled inputs and are themselves recyclable and using recycled or recyclable packaging for our e-commerce shipments and product packaging. These and other tactics will move us closer to our vision of zero waste.
To improve efficiency and reduce waste in building out our retail stores, we recently developed and are testing a master set of plans and specifications for construction. The set includes metadata to make it as easy as possible for construction teams to use, with the aim of minimizing change orders that are inherently inefficient and potentially wasteful. We anticipate the new plans and specs will cut waste once they are fully implemented.
To improve efficiency and reduce waste in building out our retail stores, we recently developed and are testing a master set of plans and specifications for construction. The set includes metadata to make it as easy as possible for construction teams to use, with the aim of minimizing change orders that are inherently inefficient and potentially wasteful. We anticipate the new plans and specs will cut waste once they are fully implemented.
Our manufacturing facility in Plock, Poland, is working toward zero waste to landfill through a waste segregation and recycling program and collection of denim material scraps for recycling into household industry. The facility has also provided employees with reusable water bottles, eliminating the use of plastic cups. Our plant in Epping, South Africa, also aims to achieve zero waste to landfill through a robust waste recycling program and collection of denim material waste for reuse in the automotive industry.
The LS&Co. Retail Sustainability Playbook includes operational guidelines for reducing waste generated in our retail stores. It provides guidance for reducing our environmental footprint by minimizing store waste and increasing recycling and reuse rates at all LS&Co. store locations. Among other guidance, the playbook advises retail store managers to:
A recent development, pre-fabricated fitting room walls, allows us to take the walls with us should we move to a new location, eliminating the waste associated with disposing of the old ones and using resources to build new ones. As of mid-2021, this is being done at our stores in India, and we aim to expand use of pre-fabricated fitting room walls to other regions in 2022.
All owned-and-operated U.S. and Canadian Levi’s® retail locations and all U.S. wholesale locations use 100% post-consumer waste stock for their print materials. What’s more, the newest mannequins we use are made from 100% recycled base stock that blends both post-industrial and post-consumer materials. Biodegradable window clings are replacing plastic window signage as of 2021. And we are piloting and setting goals for incorporating recycled denim coat hangers to further reduce wood use and waste in several locations as well. This recycled denim material was an ingenious idea by an LS&Co. employee.
Our 10 owned-and-operated distribution centers handle about 75% of our e-commerce volume globally. This gives us opportunities to make efficiency changes that reduce waste in logistics and shipping. To gain even more control over efficiency and waste, we have brought e-commerce operations in-house in India and China, and plan to bring e-commerce logistics operations in-house to our state-of-the-art, LEED Platinum-certified distribution center in Henderson, Nevada, as well. A new system in Henderson will eliminate polybags and save other plastic packaging while also reducing transportation needs — all of which will add up to environmental improvements. All our owned-and-operated sites have strong recycling programs that allow them to operate almost waste-free.
Our distribution centers are also able to reuse about 75% of the cartons that come into the facility from suppliers, repack them and ship products out to large retail customers.
Shipping packages to our customers and receiving returned packages generates a lot of waste. From paper to polybags, we are working to reduce the amount of packaging our online customers receive. Over the last two years, we have collaborated with a variety of third-party retailers to reduce or eliminate the polybags used to protect our garments during transport to their distribution centers and stores.
Approximately 90% to 95% of our products travel across the ocean by ship. Before being placed into a shipping container, our garments are packed into boxes of various sizes. A wide assortment of different boxes are used across the world, which reduces loading efficiency and leaves wasted space inside the containers. Our shipping experts are working hard to optimize the size of boxes and match box size and durability to the product, but we have not yet resolved the issue of multiple box sizes being used around the world. In 2020, we also worked on strengthening the boxes in which our products ship so they are still intact when they reach the distribution centers and can be reused. This has included improving the moisture-resistant coatings on boxes to eliminate some of the polybags used by suppliers to protect our products during shipment.
Approximately 90% to 95% of our products travel across the ocean by ship. Before being placed into a shipping container, our garments are packed into boxes of various sizes. A wide assortment of different boxes are used across the world, which reduces loading efficiency and leaves wasted space inside the containers. Our shipping experts are working hard to optimize the size of boxes and match box size and durability to the product, but we have not yet resolved the issue of multiple box sizes being used around the world. In 2020, we also worked on strengthening the boxes in which our products ship so they are still intact when they reach the distribution centers and can be reused. This has included improving the moisture-resistant coatings on boxes to eliminate some of the polybags used by suppliers to protect our products during shipment.
Most apparel companies — and we are no exception — carry more units of apparel than they end up selling to be prepared to satisfy consumer demand across a variety of styles, colors and sizes. With this practice comes waste in the form of “excess and obsolete” inventory. Optimizing this inventory could reduce environmental impacts significantly, from production, to shipping, to energy use in distribution. Much of this inventory can be sold through our brands’ outlets and third-party retailers, but resources were still consumed in its production and transportation.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and digitization offer the potential to bridge gaps between forecasted product needs and reality through more detailed demand forecasting. We also have opportunities to use digitization for product prototyping, eliminating the need to manufacture physical samples. In 2020, we pushed forward on digital evolution to incorporate more AI and predictive science for products across the company, which proved valuable in predicting uncertain demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and has already improved inventory efficiency. We will continue working toward a digitally powered organization to increase efficiency and eliminate waste wherever possible.
Most apparel companies — and we are no exception — carry more units of apparel than they end up selling to be prepared to satisfy consumer demand across a variety of styles, colors and sizes. With this practice comes waste in the form of “excess and obsolete” inventory. Optimizing this inventory could reduce environmental impacts significantly, from production, to shipping, to energy use in distribution. Much of this inventory can be sold through our brands’ outlets and third-party retailers, but resources were still consumed in its production and transportation.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and digitization offer the potential to bridge gaps between forecasted product needs and reality through more detailed demand forecasting. We also have opportunities to use digitization for product prototyping, eliminating the need to manufacture physical samples. In 2020, we pushed forward on digital evolution to incorporate more AI and predictive science for products across the company, which proved valuable in predicting uncertain demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and has already improved inventory efficiency. We will continue working toward a digitally powered organization to increase efficiency and eliminate waste wherever possible.
Soft plastic packaging bags, or polybags, and other plastics are ubiquitous in the apparel industry, with an estimated 180 billion polybags produced for the industry every year and a small percentage collected for recycling. Polybags are the clear plastic bags commonly used to protect garments, footwear, and accessories during storage and shipping. Other forms of plastics used in the apparel industry include a range of items, from small hooks, clips and shirt collar supports to large shipping carton liners. Polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, is banned from use with any LS&Co. products, so all polybags used for our products are non-PVC, biodegradable or recycled. Even so, we are working to find ways to reduce their use in our supply chain, distribution centers and stores.
We eliminated plastic collar bands two years ago, and we are currently determining the feasibility of eliminating plastic hangers. This involves close cooperation with merchants and third-party retailers and will take some time. However, we were able to reduce the number of e-commerce products needing hangers by about 5 million between 2020 and the first half of 2021.
In the LS&Co. value chain, our suppliers wrap light-colored t-shirts and tops in polybags to keep them clean, and all of our e-commerce shipments currently go out to customers in a polybag. Over the past few years, we have carefully examined our polybag use practices to replace them with paper wrapping and use different folding techniques to minimize the need for a polybag.
Within six months of our North American e-commerce operations moving to the state-of-the-art LS&Co. Henderson, Nevada, distribution center, we will eliminate polybags from e-commerce shipments. We have also begun discussions with third-party retailers such as Macy’s and JC Penney about ways they can remove polybags from their e-commerce shipments of our products as well, especially with products like dark blue or black jeans. Some retailers continue to request that every unit be shipped in a polybag, so we are working with them to demonstrate the effective use of more sustainable approaches, such as paper-based wrapping.
There is a reason polybags are so common in our industry — they work well to protect folds and keep clothing clean. Finding alternatives that work as well is a challenge. In addition, some of our third-party retail partners receive pre-packed product shipments from us. This means these items do not get opened and repackaged at a distribution center and must be in a polybag to protect them.
We continue looking at ways to reduce waste associated with our products and operations. Next steps include finalizing our waste reduction strategy to ultimately achieve zero waste to landfill. These efforts will further reduce product packaging, e-commerce and logistics waste, single-use plastics and waste related to manufacturing our products. We will continue to focus on the waste associated with shipping our products, specifically strengthening cartons for reuse and protecting our clothing, which may also help eliminate large poly carton liners. This change could save significant volumes of plastic. We will also take a deeper look at the waste generated from manufacturing, further engaging with our suppliers on waste management systems, circular production methods and measurable waste reduction.
In 2021, our owned-and-operated distribution centers will test the use of paper bags instead of polybags with some WellThread® products. The bags are strong with a slightly waxy finish that provides moisture resistance and protection from dirt and are easily recyclable. However, they cost more than twice that of polybags, so it will be challenging to make them a viable option for widespread use. We are also looking to test bio-based alternatives and will continue working with industrially compostable bags as well as recyclable polybags made from recycled content.
