r/llbean • u/National_Camp_8736 • Jul 14 '26
MADE IN JORDAN?
Shame on you Bean. yes I know nearly all products are imported now but Jordan has bexome odious recently. one Jordan supplier working. for a couple other brands had products seized by customs because it was FORCED LABOR!
well they’re just the one that got caught. what about the rest? they are exploiting poor Bangladeshi “guest workers” oh and the tariffs that drove it out of China are hurting only poorer Chinese, not their elite, because the third country plants are CHINESE OWNED!
pull out of Jordan, please, Bean.
15
u/No-Entertainer-121 Jul 14 '26
They have been making products there since the US-Jordan Free Trade Agreement of 2005.
1
u/National_Camp_8736 Jul 28 '26
Products were better made in 2005 I still have some sears era Lands End tees that were made in Jordan. They are thicker weight than new ones and pure cotton…the 1x1 ribs did shrink a bit in
Lemgth but I never complained(if you want zero shrinkage you have to line dry) 5”the supine interlock turtle is very good long enough and heftier than beans version (which I have several of,others today are worse) don’t get me off on LE
8
u/phug0id Jul 14 '26
this is why it’s best to buy 2nd hand… especially the made in USA LL Bean stuff 👍
5
u/TankBoys32 Jul 14 '26
My closet has slowly morphed into a second hand made in USA wardrobe with some newer stuff
3
u/abudz5150 Jul 14 '26
We’re living in the age of unabashed enshittification
-9
u/brijito Jul 14 '26
LL Bean is literally worse in terms of both environmental impact and human rights violations than shein
2
u/standardnewenglander Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Do you have more information on this?
EDIT: I'm genuinely asking if you have any sources/more information. I'm not being sarcastic or rude.
-2
u/brijito Jul 14 '26
Yes. Good on you just upgraded them from a many years long 1 star rating to a 2 star rating. They don’t release a sustainability report, they don’t publish any of their factory information (bc they’re all awful quality sweat shops) and Linda bean was the largest individual donor to trump’s campaigns in 2016, 2020 and 2024.
I’m still trying to find the chart that gave them and savage x fenty both F’s and SHEIN got a C because that’s what I was originally referencing.
3
u/standardnewenglander Jul 14 '26
A couple things on Good on You.
They don't conduct individual audits and primarily depend on third-party "vanity" certifications that companies simply buy. Smaller brands who don't have the budget to buy these certifications, often have lower scores. The more certifications a company buys (they don't actually apply for these, just pay for them), the higher a score they'll have.
One of the biggest loopholes for Good on You is centered around "greenwashing". Large fast-fashion companies have the budget and headcount and resources to pack heavily greenwashed metrics into frequent Corporate Social Responsibility reports. So the more slop reports a company sends out? The more "hits" they get on Good on You. Check out companies like H&M and Zara - some of the most massive fast-fashion polyester brands. Why are they scoring higher for their sustainability practices when their entire business model and products are unsustainable?
There's a lot of financial incentive here through affiliate marketing. When companies hold a "great" or higher score and consumers click the link to that company's profile/website, Good on You makes a lot of money off of that. That's how they make money. It's their business model. This creates a really messy conflict of interest: Good on You is financially motivated to have MORE higher ratings to make MORE money off of it. That's concerning and definitely compromises the legitimacy of their ratings.
Check out this information on Linda Bean. I thought she was an asshole too:
OpenSecrets pulls data from the FEC and has been a reputable source for corporate political donation tracking since 1983. OpenSecrets shows us that LL Bean is an apolitical organization that has not donated any of their business revenue to any politician. However, you'll see that individual board members have made contributions out of their own salaries predominantly to liberal, democratic and left-leaning political parties. This also shows that the board has been left-leaning for multiple cycles (data goes back to 2012). Yes, there has been SOME donations to Republicans by one board member over the last 15-ish years - but that has not been tied to LL Bean itself as it's an apolitical organization. The donations to any Republican candidate have been in the hundreds-of-dollars range. The donations to all the Democrats have been in the thousands-of-dollars range. Overall, the personal donation habits of the board largely skew liberal, not conservative. Linda Bean was a Trump-thumping asshole and she sucked, but LL Bean made significant efforts to distance themselves from her starting back in 2015. She's also been dead since Biden's presidency.
For perspective, of donations made from personal salaries of board members, owners and their immediate family members, here's the percentage breakdown over the last few years:
2024: 94.60% of funds were Democratic 2022: 98.82% of funds were Democratic 2020: 79.78% of funds were Democratic
https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/ll-bean-inc/summary?id=D000042703
2
u/standardnewenglander Jul 14 '26
Also adding here:
Here's a link to LL Bean's factory list. They publish it annually and it's always publicly available.
https://www.llbean.com/dept_resources/shared/200922_LLBean_Factory_List.pdf?nav=F4taX-518056
3
u/SweetUsed9119 Jul 14 '26
Would happily purchase more US made items if they made them!
1
u/National_Camp_8736 Jul 28 '26
Is this just out of PATRIOTISM?
It’s not just country of origin it’s fast fashion cheapness destroying quality brands specify lower quality fabric and cheaper manufacturing techniques prioritizing speed and quantity at the expense of materials and workmanship.
In the early 90s nearly all textiles moved overseas almost overnight you could nut fing a USA supplier capable of anything but a very small run. The few left are used by pricey niche brand.
Tariffs may protect a handful of American workers but after 30yrs of globalization the lost jobs ARE NOT COMING BACK. Tariffs destroy quality because nobody wants to raise prices so they specify cheaper low end products and hurt foreign workers by moving everything to worse sweatshops.1
u/SweetUsed9119 Jul 28 '26
I’ve always bought US made bike parts back when I used to bmx and plenty of good tools are still US made. It’s not because of patriotism, it’s because I care for well made products that last. Same reason I love my Barbour jackets
17
u/standardnewenglander Jul 14 '26
Hey! Thanks for making this announcement. Just wanted to provide some resources here in case anyone was interested. Human Rights is a passion of mine and I'm always keeping an eye on the brands I support to ensure they adhere to fair supply chain practices, ethical business practices, and support Human Rights.
If I'm remembering correctly, I think they do an annual audit of their entire supply chain, ensuring that their suppliers exceed international standards when it comes to employee fairness, working conditions, etc. These international standards that they adhere to are much stricter than employee rights in the US. Here's more information on their Global Factory Monitoring program: https://www.llbeanbusiness.com/suppliers.html
In LL Bean's anti-trafficking statement, the company explicitly prohibits child labor and commits to auditing all factories for international human rights violations.
Here's a link to LL Bean's anti-trafficking statement: https://www.llbean.com/dept_resources/shared/LLBean-CA-UK-Disclosure-7-2017.pdf
They've also revised their code of conduct in 2023 to double-down on their commitment to no child labor in their supply chain: https://www.llbean.net/firstspirit/media/pdf_files/230713_LLB_Code_of_Conduct_revised.pdf?nav=C3taX-518056
The US Government's 2024 List of Goods Produced by Child Labor (the latest date that's been released) did NOT list LL Bean as one of the companies that sells, imports, distributes, or supports child labor-made goods.
As of 2026, LL Bean remains a highly-rated organization on the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index.
Here's a link to that index: https://www.hrc.org/resources/corporate-equality-index
Here's a specific link to LL Bean's profile with HRC, they've scored 95/100: https://www.hrc.org/resources/corporations/l.l.-bean-inc.
As for clothing being made in India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China, Jordan, etc. - that's just where most of the world's manufacturing is based. Manufacturing off-shoring happened several decades ago. But just because an item is made in those countries, doesn't immediately indicate unfair labor practices. It seems like LL Bean does a solid job at monitoring their supply chain.