We speak to the man behind the Levi’s® initiatives to lead the change in the fashion industry for sustainability.

Sustainability has been a hot topic and a cause close to the core of many fashion companies internationally and that includes <a href="https://www.lofficielmalaysia.com/fashion/levi-s-presents-second-nature-collection">Levi&#39;s</a>, one of the most iconic denim manufacturers in the world, which has been striving to create a sustainable cycle in everything it does.

The latest campaign that Levi&#39;s rolled out was <a href="https://www.lofficielmalaysia.com/fashion/levi-s-buy-better-wear-longer-sustainable-fashion-campaign-2021">&quot;Buy Better, Wear Longer&quot;</a>, a spring campaign that aims to&nbsp;raise awareness and speak&nbsp;to our collective responsibility on the environmental impacts of apparel production and consumption. Starring a stellar cast of personalities &ndash;&nbsp;Jaden Smith, Xiye Bastida, Melati Wijsen, Xiuhtezcatl, Emma Chamberlain and Marcus Rashford MBE &ndash; , the campaign solidifies the brand&#39;s stand to make &quot;quality clothing&nbsp;that can last&nbsp;generations&quot;, while working on various issues surrounding sustainability in fashion.

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Emma Chamberlain

Jaden Smith

Marcus Rashford MBE

Melati Wijsen

Xiye Bastida

Xiuhtezcatl

The &quot;Buy Better, Wear Longer&quot; campaign also encapsulates Levi&rsquo;s&reg; ongoing efforts to drive more sustainable manufacturing including projects to invest&nbsp;in materials and technologies such as Cottonized Hemp and Organic Cotton, and scale&nbsp;Water&lt;Less&reg; manufacturing, which will&nbsp;reduce Levi&#39;s own natural resource footprint and help deliver a more planet-friendly apparel industry.

And today, we sit down with Paul Dillinger,&nbsp;Levi Strauss &amp; Co&#39;s Vice President of Global Product Innovation (also known to its&nbsp;Global Chief Sustainability Officer) to talk about the various efforts done by Levi&#39;s and his personal outlook on the industry&#39;s progress in the world of sustainability.&nbsp;

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Scroll down to read our interview with&nbsp;Paul Dillinger:

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As the man on the helm to oversee Levi&#39;s sustainability efforts, what is sustainable fashion to Levi&rsquo;s&reg;?

If you look back to see why and how Levi&#39;s started as a brand, it has always been about innovation for the sake of durability. Now, durability and usefulness are really the key elements of sustainability &ndash; the idea that something should work better and&nbsp;last longer is truly the core value of Levi&#39;s.

Levi&#39;s has never changed its expectation for its product to work as a product of utility (on top of being an object of fashion) and that laid&nbsp;down the groundwork for an ethic of quality and sustainable product making. And more recently it has become a growing awareness on how the process of making clothing impact the environment.

It was in 2017 when Levi&#39;s did a life cycle assessment that we really reconsider what it means to be durable,&nbsp;ethical and conscientious&nbsp;about resource impact and waste pollution. That&#39;s where we began our journey to, first of all, to understand and change the impact we have on the environment.

What has Levi&#39;s done so far in terms of campaign and efforts to promote sustainability?

On the campaign side, we have our reluctance to use sustainability as a messaging tool because we don&#39;t want to use the good work of impact reduction as a tool to increase impact in marketing to sell more clothes, which results in overconsumption by consumers &ndash; another big problem in sustainability.

We want people to buy Levi&#39;s for the quality and durability and not use sustainability as an excuse to buy from us. Over the years, we have been doing our work quietly&nbsp;like the Water&gt;Less campaign, where we recalibrate water consumption in our production where we actually reduce water used in denim finishing&nbsp;by 95%.

Now, what we have done with the recent&nbsp; &quot;Buy Better, Wear Longer&quot; campaign is we let the world know that not all the work on sustainability has to be done by the manufacturer. In fact, a lot of the impact also happens in the consumers and ownership phase. So, instead of shouting that &quot;we are doing sustainable products&quot;, we want people to think, &quot;have you thought about buying with intention?&quot; or &quot;have you thought about consuming mindfully and owning things responsibly by caring for them longer?&quot;.

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What are the challenges that the fashion industry faces as a continuously consuming industry?

The biggest challenge is finding the balance between production and sustainability and identifying the problems that cause environmental and social impact. The data right now is very unclear&nbsp;and the understanding of impact is very vague. We often talk about how denim is a very &quot;dirty&quot; business and cotton is a very thirsty crop (that consumes a lot of water) but if you look at alternatives like polyester, it uses fossil fuel which has various carbon implications related to the petroleum industry.

The solution here is to find that balance and the practice of&nbsp;moderation when producing goods. Consumers also need to look to invest in things that matter and not treat clothing as candy wrappers, especially in fast-fashion retail.

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With the ongoing pandemic globally. how has&nbsp;Levi&rsquo;s&reg; continued its&nbsp;efforts to communicate with&nbsp;consumers and educate them in matters of sustainability?

I had the concern when everything shut down last year that sustainability, which is a personal passion of mine and something I work on for Levi&#39;s, will be de-prioritised as we face the pandemic, but I was really excited that it didn&#39;t happen. Instead, it gave us the urgency to the matter at hand.

I think it is because when we work from home during this period, we are&nbsp;surrounded by all the stuff that we shouldn&#39;t have bought and various impulse or bad purchases we had. That got us to think about what constitutes &quot;lasting value&quot; and &quot;meaningful purchases&quot;; and what the concerns our customers have right now, who are people struggling financially at the time. We wanted to create a product that matters and is worth the purchase.

So, the very first product I was able to release to the market&nbsp;when we opened up was this ongoing project we have been working on with Renewcell, a Swedish textile company.

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What was the project with Renewcell about?

The project created a new technology that allows old jeans that can no longer be worn&nbsp;to be chemically deconstructed into reusable pulps that can be made into a new fibre called&nbsp;Circulose&reg;&nbsp;which we used to create a pair of sustainable jeans (made with 60% organic cotton and 40%&nbsp;Circulose&reg;)&nbsp;that feels and wear better than what we already have.

This chemical process happens in an urban city in Sweden which has the regulation and constraints in energy and chemical management of a Nordic country, which makes the process a very clean one. These new jeans are created with no polyester materials at all with second-generation materials which are optimised for third-generation use. This technology can truly create a circular industrial ecology. That was our leading sustainability message in July 2020 when we are allowed to reopen -&ndash; jeans that mattered.&nbsp;

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Do you have any tips or advice for us to maximise our own sustainability efforts when caring for our Levi&#39;s jeans?

There&#39;s a lot of things you can do. One of the cruellest things you can do to a pair of jeans is putting them into the dryer. Water dries by itself without the need to use this big electric machinery at home. In fact, Malaysia has better drying habits than many western countries.

If you wash your jeans in cold water (as infrequently as you are comfortable with) and dry them naturally, you will get clothes that look better and last longer. Think of it this way, cotton is naturally a flower from a plant we farm to create clothing. Like a house plant you have, you just need to give it just the right amount of water and put it in the sun; and that&#39;s what you should really do for your clothes too.

Also, another idea is sharing and exchanging clothes with your friends or within a micro-community. Levi&#39;s, on a larger scale, has a website called &quot;Levi&#39;s SecondHand&quot;, where used garments&nbsp;can be resold to others. I think that is a good way to extend the life of a garment and, hopefully, to consume with more consciousness.

Discover more about Levi&#39;s and its sustainability efforts now on <a href="https://www.levi.com.my/sustainability">www.levi.com.my</a>.

Interview: Paul Dillinger on the road to sustainable fashion with Levi's

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