Hemp is one of the strongest plants in the world, but its misunderstood association with marijuana has rendered it illegal in America for the past century. Alas, the times are changing, and hemp cultivation is legal now. Congress finally passed the Hemp Cultivation Law on the agricultural bill in December 2019. Now it’s only a matter of time before we see how hemp fares against cotton.

The liberation of this super-plant may be revolutionary for many industries, such as clothing manufacturers. Hemp produces two times as much fiber as cotton and uses much less water and pesticides. It also improves the soil while growing, grows faster, and can be harvested locally to provide manufacturers a more affordable and eco-friendly source of hemp fiber for making fabric from.

For as many companies that are turning to sustainability to appease its customers and reduce their contribution to climate change, the availability of hemp as a material choice is beneficial. Levi Strauss is one of the companies starting to promote itself as more sustainable by incorporating hemp into their materials catalog.

Paul Dillinger, head of global product innovation for Levi’s, told Business Insider:

Our intention is to take this to the core of the line, to blend it into the line, to make this a part of the Levi’s portfolio. So often there’s the assumption that to purchase a sustainably-made product is going to involve a sacrifice, and that the choice is between something ethically made or something that’s cute. You don’t have to sacrifice to buy sustainably.

The well-known clothing brand will be offering jeans made of 30% hemp and 70% cotton thanks to a breakthrough technology they developed that makes hemp as soft as cotton. Typically, the texture of hemp is much tougher than cotton, but Levi found a solution after years of research so it could exchange less sustainable cotton fiber for hemp in its jeans.

Dillinger said:

It’s a longer, stiffer, coarser fiber. It doesn’t want to be turned into something soft. It wants to be turned into rope.

As a bonus, the fibers technology specialist working with the company developed the process in a way that uses minimal chemicals and energy and much less water.

Dillinger said:

We’re going to go from a garment that goes from 3,781 L of freshwater, 2,655 of that in just the fiber cultivation. We take out more than 2/3 of the total water impact on the garment. That’s saving a lot.

The cultivation alone of hemp uses a tenth of the water used in a cotton plantation while producing twice as much fiber! Even by substituting, only 30% of the cotton is good for the environment. The fact that Levi’s dedicated time and effort into making hemp as soft as cotton so it could do this is lovely. It plans to substitute more clothing with hemp in the future and establish clothing that is 100% hemp that feels as soft as if they were made of cotton within five years.