Levi’s Climate Promises Hit With Shareholder Reality Check

21 Apr 2026 Levi's Climate Promises Hit With Shareholder Reality Check

Washington, D.C. - At Wednesday's Levi Strauss annual meeting, shareholders have the opportunity to amend the company's bylaws in order to create an Audit Committee to oversee Levi's sustainability commitments.

Proposal 4, submitted by the National Center for Public Policy Research's Free Enterprise Project (FEP), requests that Levi Strauss create an Audit Committee that would at minimum be "assessing annually the extent to which the corporation's sustainability initiatives have been authorized and maintained on the basis of expected value and return-on-investment calculations."

"Management has made 'net zero by 2050' a 'sustainability goal' for Levi Strauss," FEP Executive Director Steve Milloy will tell shareholders Wednesday. "The absurd net zero goal is more than a just lie. It has pushed the company to boast about buying so-called 'renewable energy' - which is code for 'pointlessly expensive and unreliable energy.'"

Milloy will continue:

The grand irony of all this is that even if management insists on believing in the climate hoax, Levi Strauss could stop using energy today and forever, and the amount of greenhouse gas emissions avoided would make absolutely no difference to climate or weather. The math is exceedingly simple.

Our company pays more money for energy because of arrogance and ignorance. It propagates material falsehoods about sustainability to shareholders, regulators, employees, customers and the public.

As a securities lawyer, I can tell you that it's quite illegal for management to issue materially misleading statements. Management may want to dismiss all this as "micromanaging." But the only thing "micro" in all this is management's credibility. Implementing and propagating fraud, as well as wasting corporate resources, is bad business. Since management isn't really interested in oversight of corporate sustainability, shareholders must be.

Levi Strauss shareholders can support Proposal 4 by voting their proxies before Wednesday's meeting.

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The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a nonpartisan, free-market, independent conservative think tank. Contributions are tax-deductible and may be earmarked for the Free Enterprise Project. Sign up for email updates here.

The Free Enterprise Project, the original and premier opponent of the woke takeover of American corporate life, aims to push corporations to respect their fiduciary obligations and to stay out of political and social engineering.

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