With its new denim collection , Patagonia says it is changing the way denim is made and raising the bar for environmental and human rights practices. The company sites environmentally friendlier dye, Fair Trade Certified sewing practices, and 100% organic cotton grown without pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers.
Typically, denim production involves the use of chemicals to grow conventional cotton; dying it produces millions of gallons of wastewater; and, too often, jeans are sewn in factories where workers may not be treated fairly. Patagonia’s new dyeing and manufacturing process uses dyestuffs that bond more easily to cotton, minimizing the resource-intensive and environmentally destructive indigo dyeing, rinsing and garment washing process used to create traditional denim, says the company. Patagonia says it is using 84% less water, 30% less energy and emitting 25% less CO2 than conventional synthetic indigo denim dyeing processes.
“We wanted to find an alternative solution to using the standard indigo dyeing methods we once employed to create denim. It took several years of research, innovation, trial and error, but the result is a new path for denim. We’re hopeful other manufacturers will follow suit and help us change the denim industry,” Helena Barbour, Patagonia’s Business Unit Director, Sportswear.
As part of the company’s commitment to improve factory workers’ lives, Patagonia Denim is Fair Trade Certified for sewing. The Fair Trade program’s market-based approach helps workers receive fair compensation for their labor, while creating better working conditions and safeguarding against the use of child labor. In addition to the six denim styles, Patagonia has grown its Fair Trade clothing styles from 33 in spring 2015 to 192 in fall 2015.
