By outsourcing jeans production to contractors in developing countries, apparel companies are able to avoid accountability for the carbon emissions created by manufacturing their products. Climate pollution is likely to have severe impact on developing countries, like Bangladesh, Vietnam, and China, that produce the world’s clothes. People who are already being exploited by jeans makers seeking cheap labor and lax pollution laws outside of the United States are also being disproportionately impacted by climate pollution.

The clothing industry is the second largest polluter in the world, second only to oil. The apparel industry generates about three per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, roughly equal to the climate pollution created by putting 163 million new passenger cars on the road. One pair of denim jeans produces 44 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to driving a car almost 48 miles.

Filthy Fashion, a newly-launched campaign from Stand. earth in partnership with Sum of Us, an international corporate watchdog, targets seven denim brands including Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Guess, Express, American Eagle Outfitters, Wrangler, and Lee for ignoring their own impact in regard to the greenhouse gas emissions created by apparel manufacturing.

The groups are calling on all seven brands to take responsibility for their devastating environmental impacts and immediately begin addressing their greenhouse gas emissions created by denim manufacturing.