Levi’s to Face Pressure from PETA Over Leather Patches

As a Shareholder, Group Will Confront Retailer Over Gratuitous Use of Leather Patches on Jeans

For Immediate Release:
April 7, 2020

Contact:
Moira Colley 202-483-7382

“When will Levi’s make the environmentally imperative decision to stop sourcing animal leather, starting with its branded patches?” That’s the question that a representative of PETA—which bought shares in the company last year—will ask during Levi’s virtual annual meeting on Wednesday morning.

“Levi’s can’t claim to be eco-conscious as long as it’s fueling the toxic leather industry,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA is asking the company to take a stand against climate change and cruelty to cows by using only vegan leather patches, which are already used on most of its jeans.”

The full question that will be asked during the meeting reads:

Levi’s claims to be eco-conscious yet continues to fuel the leather industry’s devastating effects on our planet just for a scrap of material that bears the company’s name. Raising cows for food and leather wastes vast quantities of water. Fires have ravaged the Amazon rainforest, razing thousands of acres of trees, in part because of the demand for leather, as it was cattle ranchers who set these fires to graze cows and grow crops to feed them. Globally, animal agriculture—including leather—is a leading contributor to climate change, in part because of the massive volume of greenhouse gases that cows emit on factory farms and those emitted by tanneries. But Levi’s refuses to act.

Regardless of its origin, cow leather is three times worse for the environment than vegan leather, and since the majority of Levi’s patches are already leather-free, it should be a no-brainer to switch to using exclusively vegan leather. It’s time for Levi’s to put its money where its mouth is, to stop contributing to an industry that is pushing our environment to the brink of destruction just for the sake of a brand label.

My question is this: When will Levi’s make the environmentally imperative decision to stop sourcing animal leather, starting with its branded patches?

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear”—opposes speciesism, which is a human-supremacist worldview. For more information, please visit PETA.org.