Citizens of Humanity’s Sustainability Approach Began With a Focus on Underproduction
When Amy Williams joined Citizens of Humanity 15 years ago, sustainability had already been baked into the brand’s ethos.
At the time, the company had a less developed strategy than it does today, but the foundations it already maintained allowed its hopes for a better brand to come to fruition over the coming years.
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One of the brand’s most important tenets, Williams, the denim brand’s CEO, told attendees of Sourcing Journal and Rivet’s first Los Angeles Sustainability event, has always been an insistence on underproduction.
“What we’ve always maintained is a focus on making less than what the market might demand, and frankly, selling less to the retailers than they might want, knowing that that would mean sustainability for our brands, but also sustainability for the business relationships and sustainability for the retailers,” she said.
That commitment to underproduction eventually led Citizens of Humanity to pursue a vertically integrated strategy—that is to say, owning its own manufacturing facilities and processes. Now, the company owns sewing and denim laundry facilities in both Los Angeles and Turkey, and partners with a select few other suppliers and manufacturers.
Williams said that, while vertical integration had been a goal the company worked toward for some time before making it a reality, it has come with both ups and downs along the way.
“I think probably a lot of people in the room would say, ‘Wow, what a luxury that is.’ And it certainly is a luxury, but I think it also comes with a bit of a heavy burden,” she said.
Williams went on to say that the benefits of vertical production include oversight over team members’ wages, benefits and education programs, as well as the ability to make high-dollar investments in “producing products in the most long-lasting and thoughtful way.”
Nonetheless, owning and operating such facilities presents responsibilities legacy brands, who often use third-party manufacturers and suppliers in countries like China, Bangladesh and Vietnam, may not have to think about.
“There’s a great deal of effort and energy focused on what we’re making, when we’re shipping out, how responsive we can be to market shifts and using that as part of our overall sustainable objectives and mission,” Williams explained.
Supply chain and operations aren’t the only upgrade Citizens of Humanity has been mulling on its sustainability journey; Williams said she and the team also recognize the importance associated with raw materials and dyes in the production processes.
The company has launched its Regenerative Cotton Program in partnership with consultancy Advancing Eco Agriculture (AEA); it works with farmers in the United States on growing and harvesting regenerative cotton, which it has started using in some of its garments. While it officially launched regenerative cotton in 2024, Citizens of Humanity first began the process of linking up with farmers in 2022.
Williams said the benefits of regenerative farming extend far beyond those of organic cotton farming, which she said “is more about what you’re not putting into the earth” than repeatedly ensuring better environmental health.
“For us…regenerative cotton is a solution, and something that has and does improve soil health. It improves the financial health of farms; it improves communities; it improves the quality of food,” she told the audience. “We realized that we were sort of stripping the earth and the benefit, and that we could, in fact, figure out a new path forward.”
As Citizens of Humanity continues to manage its Regenerative Cotton Program, Williams and her team also have aspirations to make their dyestuff greener. The brand will debut products with a bio-based dye with Net-a-Porter in January and will later sell them online and with other retailers. The company plans to further test and validate bio-based dyes to bring the solution to market at scale.
To make further progress—and to aid others in the industry in doing so—Williams said collaboration and transparency has become more important than ever.
“The biggest opportunity…[is] really leaning into a lot of other people in the industry and figuring out how to be as collaborative and cooperative, so that we can impact scalable, sizable change and not think about it in a competitive way,” she said. “When a brand’s DNA and purpose is clear…the more we can share, the faster we’re going to make impact and the better that’s going to be for all of us.”
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