As I'm not an active Enlightement developer, I am taking an educated guess.
On the Enlightenment developer mailing list, there are a lot of references, usually in closing, to various states of pants. These appear to be tongue in cheek references meant for humor. It seems to have been started, or at least perpetuated, by lead developer The Rasterman.
pants on! (or skirts... whatever tickles your fancy).
:)
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------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler) ras...@rasterman.com
It's probably safe to assume that the environment variable is a nod to this inside developer joke.
Of course the easiest is to set `PANTS=OFF` and see if it has any obvious effect. If you are very curious, subscribe to the Enlightenment developer list and ask there.