A Brief Summary

Non-profit and multistakeholder governance group, Better Cotton intends to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by implementing new metrics that will track farm-level sustainability success. Physical traceability will allow improving soil health while using less water, fertilisers, and pesticides. The new strategy is designed to deliver substantial environmental, social, and economic impact across the cotton industry by 2030.

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The organisation intends to create physical traceability platforms that will allow merchants to make more accurate sustainability claims about the cotton content of their products. According to Better Cotton, the instruments will assure the goals' long-term success, and the goal is to increase soil health while using less water, fertilisers, and pesticides.

The goal is based on the Better Cotton Standard System, which promotes transparency and accountability in the supply chain.

Better Cotton claims to have taught over 2.5 million farmers in 25 countries and raised $131 million to fund the capacity building and other field-level operations. In 2021-22, the investment is estimated to increase to $165.4 million.

Better Cotton claims that its sustainability efforts have resulted in 19 per cent lower greenhouse gas emissions per metric tonne of lint than comparable output in China, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Turkey. According to the group, its farmers in India, where most are permitted to grow their cotton, used 10% less water, 13% less fertiliser, and 23% fewer pesticides during the 2019-2020 season than farmers in the same region who were not with the company.

Cotton production emits 220 million metric tonnes of CO2 per year, 8.2 million metric tonnes of chemicals, and has a water footprint of 8.2 trillion cubic feet.

Better Cotton CEO Alan McClay states, "This is a pledge for Better Cotton farmers and a stake in the ground for the global cotton business." "We'll also help farmers gain access to markets, and we'll provide feedback on the outcomes they're getting through our measurements, so they can see the benefits of sustainable methods and continue to improve the way they farm."

Similar sustainability measures have been implemented in other agricultural-based products. ekaterra, a tea company, has implemented regenerative agriculture to achieve net-zero by 2030, while Starbucks is also working to improve farming practices to create net-zero coffee.

The US Regenerative Cotton Fund, a collaboration between the Soil Health Institute and Ralph Lauren, aims to eliminate 1 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide from cotton production in the United States.

The textile and fashion industries also vowed to reach net-zero by 2050 at COP26, according to Better Cotton, and its 2030 strategy corresponds with those aims and will provide measurable benchmarks that might have an impact on cotton output globally and benefit the entire industry.