Levi Strauss & Co. is trying to weave accountability throughout its supply chain.

The first step is a pilot program now under way for a new kind of certification that, if successful, will allow Levi to say where its cotton comes from. That would be a first in the apparel industry and a necessary initial step to being able to say definitively that cotton is sustainably and ethically sourced.

Currently, it’s almost impossible to source where cotton comes from. Levi alone uses close to 150 different textile mills, all of which buy cotton from multiple sources, and so far, there is no credible and reliable system to trace the source of cotton.

“It starts by being clear with our suppliers that we want to know where you get your denim from,” said John Anderson, CEO of Levi Strauss and Co. who spoke to a group of students at U.C. Berkeley’s Haas School of Business earlier this week. Anderson cautioned, “We’re not going to get it right overnight.”

Nor does Levi have a specific timeline for this pilot, and Anderson declined to say what the San Francisco company is investing in it.

Levi is partnering with Historic Futures — experts in supply chains — for this test, looking to trace cotton’s chain of custody from growers to gins to fabric mills to factories with enough accuracy to provide each pair of jeans with a certificate of origin, should Levi choose.

Wal-Mart did something similar for jewelry, again with help from Historic Futures.

Improving traceability is an outgrowth of Levi’s three year partnership with the Better Cotton Initiative, and it's also an effort to positively impact the environment and farmers’ lives by changing some growing practices. Other apparel companies are also involved in the initiative.

Levi has long pioneered socially-conscious business practices, and many of its early moves have since become industry standards.

Several years ago, it performed a lifecycle study of a pair of 501 jeans and a pair of Dockers over their full life, from cotton field to landfill. Those findings prompted the company to work with cotton growers to make their practices more environmentally friendly, and to change their care tags to stress cold water washing and air-drying.

Levi’s care tag efforts went a step further this week, with special window displays in all 50 of Levi’s U.S. retail stores. The window displays promote cold water washing and encourages people to donate their jeans to Goodwill once they are done with them. This could become a global initiative.