FOR A WORLD THAT WORKS ™

Lee is committed to bring more people together to transform communities in which we operate.

Every year, our employees spend hundreds of hours of volunteering for their communities around the world. From installing denim insulation after natural disasters to planting gardens, we encourage and support employees to give back.

Lee has always dressed the American workforce and supported local communities. In October 2020, Lee announced it will supply apparel to workers in a new high-tech greenhouse built by AgTech company, AppHarvest. As one of the largest controlled environment agriculture facilities in the world, the site aims to grow fresh non-GMO produce using 90% less water compared to traditional open-field agriculture. It also brings hundreds of jobs to the Appalachia region, an area heavily impacted by the collapse of the coal industry. Lee is proud to be the exclusive denim provider for the workers of AppHarvest’s new facility.

The people who grow our materials and design & craft our products are the true fabric of Lee. To protect their health, promote their safety and ensure their well-being, we’ve enacted Terms of Engagement and Global Compliance Principles by which we expect all our partners and suppliers to abide.

Lee is committed to seek out more sustainable solutions.

We are committed to embed sustainable business practices throughout our global operations and supply chain. Lee has reached zero-waste designation for all of our owned distribution centers in North America. This means that at least 95% of the waste from these facilities will be diverted from landfills through recycling, composting and reuse. We are also committed to further reducing waste in product design, retail stores and composite offices.

At Lee, we make sure we conserve water wherever we can. Lee has launched Indigood™ Denim, a signature denim collection that eliminates water from the denim dying process, producing a more sustainable jean. Additionally, in 2019, Lee celebrated over one billion liters of water saved during the water-intensive finishing process for our denim products, and we’re still counting.

Lee is committed to finding more innovative design solutions to deliver better products that meet consumers’ growing demand for high-quality apparel looks good and fits great and uphold our values for social and environmental impact.

On circularity, we work with Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Jeans Redesign. By forming guidelines that minimize waste associated with denim production, establish requirements for jean durability and recyclability, and ensure positive impacts on the environment, this initiative is transforming our approach to design. We’re developing high-quality clothing that’s less harmful to the planet, our communities, and the people who craft our products.

Lee has become an industry leader in the world of virtual design, using technology to revolutionize the way we develop our products. Our advancements in virtual design technology have reduced the number of physical prototypes generated by 30%. Producing fewer prototypes saves the same amount of water as 72,000 Americans use in a day and reduces the equivalent carbon emissions of nearly 1 million passenger-vehicle miles.

One of the ways Lee plans to meet our sustainable cotton goal is through our partnership with Better Cotton Initiative (BCI). BCI aims to reduce the use of pesticides and promote the use of efficient water use, crop rotation, and fair working conditions. Each year, Kontoor Brands, the parent company of Lee, increase the volume of sustainable cotton purchased - from 700 MT in 2014 to 21,299 MT in 2020. Better Cotton is sourced via a system of Mass Balance and is not physically traceable to end products. See Bettercotton.org for more details around their sustainable initiative.