All about sustainable jeans

How do we choose our denim brands? Ecology plays a big part! That's why you'll find some of the most innovative, more sustainable jeans makers at Brooklyn.
But what really makes the difference with sustainable jeans? We go over the key factors below!

More sustainable jeans for women

More sustainable jeans for men

Choice of materials

The first, decisive step is choosing the material. The raw material largely determines how sustainable a pair of jeans is. Because cotton uses so much water, land, energy and chemicals, we need alternative raw materials. Organic cotton and recycled cotton are ideal!

Farmers grow organic cotton without harmful chemicals or pesticides. Recycled cotton, on the other hand, reuses cutting waste and old jeans. The fabric is ground down into small fibres several times and spun into the yarn that's needed. As technology takes big steps forward in making strong yarns from recycled fabrics, a pair of trousers today can already be made largely from recycled yarn.

When cotton isn't the choice, materials like hemp, lyocell & linen are also great sustainable raw materials. In our sustainability blog post you'll find even more info on sustainable fabrics and get to know our eco-labels . They show whether a fabric is really certified, and therefore genuinely eco-friendly.

Once the material is chosen, the production process matters just as much. The next steps also help determine the eco-score of your jeans.

Production process

Material chosen, now it's time to make your jeans. Making jeans takes an enormous amount of water . Smart denim makers filter their wastewater so it can be reused and the chemicals don't end up in nature.

One of those smart brands is Levi's. They use waterless finishing techniques. One of them creates a 'used look' without using any water. How? By tumbling the jeans in a dryer lined with sandpaper. Et voilà, the perfect worn effect! Another example is using nano-foam or lasers to get bleached jeans. This technology keeps evolving to make the denim industry sustainable.

Energy & CO² emissions

Besides using lots of water, making jeans is very energy-intensive. Here too, our innovative brands aren't standing still! The pioneers of sustainable jeans, MUD jeans & Nudie Jeans, run entirely on green energy and so have a CO²-neutral production process! Lee Cooper also aims to run entirely on green energy by 2025. Armed Angels saves more than half the usual emissions by working with organic cotton.

Waste processing

A final important step is waste processing. How manufacturers handle it really matters.

MUD jeans is the champion of jeans recycling. To make that happen, their jeans are made from a single raw material, usually organic cotton. That makes recycling the item a lot easier.

Lee jeans goes for zero-waste factories, cutting waste by as much as 95%. Their virtual designs mean 30% fewer prototypes need to be made, which also reduces textile waste.

Honesty is the best policy

It's important that jeans can be made in an eco-friendly way, but sustainable also has to mean fair! Harmful practices like child labour & unsafe working conditions deserve the spotlight too. If your jeans carry a fairtrade label, you know for sure they were made for a fair wage and in a safe working environment. The brand Scotch and Soda is committed to this too. That's why they signed a pledge against modern slavery, which is still a major problem in the East.