By Sahar Haq, Senior Social Impact Coordinator, and Amanda Noakes, Senior Decent Work Coordinator at the Better Cotton Initiative
What wages are actually paid on cotton farms in Pakistan? This is a vital question for the improvement of wages and decent working conditions in the sector – and one to which the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) has been seeking the most reliable answers. With support from the ISEAL Innovations Fund, between July 2024 and April 2025 BCI launched a pioneering Wage Transparency pilot across Pakistan, in Punjab and Sindh provinces, in search of that missing information.
While low wages have long been recognised as a persistent challenge in cotton production, the extent of the gap between actual wages received and established benchmarks for minimum and living wages had not been systematically quantified until now. Through the pilot, BCI developed and tested a new wage sampling approach, collecting baseline wage data from the farms involved. The initiative aimed to understand how wages are set, paid, and distributed – specifically, for permanent , seasonal, hourly-rate , daily-rate and output-based workers, as well as sharecroppers.
Our new report offers unique insights into the project, with information from over 2,000 farmworkers and 200 farmers, covering nearly 25% of smallholder producer units across the country.
Beyond its immediate application, the project aims to contribute to broader sectoral learning and cross-initiative collaboration. By sharing its findings, BCI hopes to support and collaborate with other stakeholders navigating wage measurement challenges in low- and middle-income agricultural contexts, to explore solutions together.
This milestone marks a big step forward in the Better Cotton Initiative’s mission to promote decent work, including wage improvements, and sustainable livelihoods, including income improvements, for farmers and workers.
BCI’s Programme Partners in Pakistan, Sangtani Women Rural Development Organisation (SWRDO), CABI Pakistan, WWF Pakistan and Rural Education and Economic Development Society (REEDS), participated in the pilot to develop the farm-level wage sampling tool.
The road ahead: beyond transparency
As BCI works to promote decent work and more sustainable value chains, wage transparency is an important tenet of our work, in line with our new Decent Work Strategy.
By establishing a reliable and scalable wage sampling tool, we have laid the groundwork not only for improved data collection but also for meaningful action to support wage improvements across cotton-producing communities. Ultimately, this initiative for us is about more than data – it is also about driving change.
By Rogerio Simoes, Media & Content Manager at the Better Cotton Initiative
The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) marked this year’s World Cotton Day with significant changes: it launched an innovative product label; it updated its logo, website, and overall design; and adopted its original name, having been known simply as Better Cotton in the past few years.
These changes may seem unrelated, but they are part of the same picture. They are connected to several steps taken recently by BCI to improve transparency, accountability, and its overall connection with members, partners, farmers, consumers, and the general public.
From the new label that now informs the presence of Physical BCI Cotton contained in a product to a name that emphasises the organisation’s role as an initiative, all that is the result of years of efforts to expand and deepen the organisation’s impact.
Traceability on a tag
Our new product label comes out of the traceability system that has been gradually implemented since November 2023. In the past two years, we at the Better Cotton Initiative have been expanding our capacity to trade Physical BCI Cotton, traced back to its country of origin – offering brands, retailers and consumers the assurance of a commodity, BCI Cotton, produced by farmers certified to our standard.
Now, the BCI Cotton label will offer brands and retailers the ability to share with their consumers that story, on their own products. If a product sourced by a certified BCI Retailer or Brand Member contains at least 30% of Physical BCI Cotton, and the remaining up to 70% contain only other materials, that retailer or brand will now be able to share that information with consumers.
The new label, which is optional, provides the following:
Information that it contains BCI Cotton, grown in accordance with the BCI Farm Standard by certified farmers – who follow more sustainable practices required by the Better Cotton Initiative’s standard – and sourced via a segregated chain of custody model (using our traceability platform);
The percentage of BCI Cotton contained in the product;
An official identification number that can be used to confirm that the brand is certified.
Our CEO, Nick Weatherill, clearly summarised the meaning of our new product label. “In a time of increasing scrutiny around sustainability claims, global trade pressures, and shifting Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) priorities, transparency and accountability are more critical than ever.”
“As we celebrate World Cotton Day, our new label reaffirms our commitment to both, as part of our mission to drive measurable impact and continuous improvement in sustainability across the cotton sector.”
The BCI Cotton label comes in a year marked by another milestone. In June, during BCI’s annual conference inİzmir, Türkiye, we announced that the Better Cotton Initiative’s standard will close remaining gaps, so it is fully aligned with the fundamental principles of regenerative agriculture. While several principles of regenerative agriculture have already been followed by BCI alongside our certified farmers for years, a few elements remain to be fully implemented – and that is what the Better Cotton Initiative is now doing, with completion expected by June 2026.
None of these new steps, however, would be possible without something even more important: our impact throughout 16 years of operations, in more than 20 countries, improving conditions for over 2 million farmers. Much of this story can be found in the Better Cotton Initiative’s 2024-25 Annual Report, which goes beyond the achievements of the past year to provide a broader report of our impact over the years. You can download the report from this page.
Once again, we take the initiative
With new label new logo, and new impact numbers that we proudly share with our community, embracing our original full name was an easy decision to make. By becoming once again the Better Cotton Initiative, we remind our farmers, members, and partners that BCI is and has always been an initiative, a forward movement committed to constantly improve sustainability in cotton farming.
Not only are we an initiative, but we are taking it too, by creating new ways of communicating with both our community and consumers – on top of the bold actions we have taken. Years ago, even though our mass balance system allowed us to achieve the scale required to support hundreds of thousands of farmers every year, we took the initiative to develop, introduce, and expand our own traceability system.
We also took the initiative to become a certification system in February of this year. The certification process, conducted by independent third parties, was another important step towards full accountability and transparency, aligning what brands and consumers increasingly demand from us with our responsibility to support farmers, their families, and their communities.
Whilst the changes above were still being implemented, again we took the initiative, by announcing that the BCI standard would become a regenerative one. Being an initiative was in our creation, has been part of our DNA since then, and it is now once again officially part of our name.
We hope our farmers, members, partners and colleagues appreciate and make good use of our changes, proudly announced on this year’s World Cotton Day. They can be certain that, behind new visual identify, name, and label, one thing remains the same: our determination to improve sustainability in cotton production, including delivering to consumers the information and the results they expect and deserve to see.
Ali Ertuğrul, from USB Certification, at the Better Cotton Conference in İzmir (Credit: Better Cotton Initiative)
By Ali Ertuğrul, Technical and Quality Manager at USB Certification
USB Certification was Headline Sponsor at the Better Cotton Conference 2025 in İzmir, Türkiye
I’m an environmental engineer, so sustainability is at my heart. As the technical and quality manager for textile and recycling certification departments at USB Certification, I make sure the programme requirements, including those with Better Cotton, are implemented correctly.
This year, we started working in Pakistan with farm-level certification for Better Cotton, something which has been pretty exciting for us. Even though we had done farm certification before, in other countries, this is quite special–and we believe that sustainable production practices will flourish there.
The working models, especially in supply chains, are quite different from country to country. You can have bigger production areas in certain countries, like Bangladesh, or you can have a network of suppliers and subcontractors working together, as in Turkey. So, while we are doing certification, we are also guiding them towards achieving their goals in traceability, to ensure their compliance against the requirements.
Data and collective work
The biggest risk in the sustainability sector right now is greenwashing. There’s nowhere to go if we cannot back up our claims with data, with actual, factual, and verified data. But we also have to propagate that data throughout the supply chain.
In order to be able to do that, you need a technological infrastructure to ensure traceability from the extraction of the raw material–or production of the raw material–all the way to the labels, on the consumer facing product itself.
You cannot do it without data, you cannot do it without assurance, and you definitely cannot do it without in a technological infrastructure.
Different stakeholders need to work together to reach sustainability goals. First of all, we need programme ownership, assurance provider, and certification. We are part of a triangle which are interacting with the other two areas.
Programme owners set the requirements, the criteria, for the compliance of certified entities. They also assign assurance providers, so they can actually verify the system of a certification body, not only monitoring the outcome of the work that the certification bodies are doing. They also make sure the certification bodies have a mature, competent system capable of assessing the requirements of the standard–in the audit and the certification process.
Eyes on the ground
There is another responsibility: we are the eyes on the ground. If we see any deviations, if there’s any ground reality that is deviating from the standard requirements, it’s our responsibility to have that communicated to the programme owners. It is part of the monitoring, evaluationand learning cycle.
As a programme owner, Better Cotton is heavily involved with the implementation of the standard itself, through their implementation partners all over the world. That means, it also gives the standard a localised context. In that sense, it was actually good to witness such a nuanced approach to standard requirements.
With the new certification paradigm that has come up, the collaboration between the program owner and the certification body, like USB Certification, will be tighter in the coming years, thanks to the level of assurance. The level of data collaboration will increase.
Hearing from farmers
At this year’s Better Cotton Conference, the sessions brought some provocative questions into the spotlight, which I quite enjoyed. Also, this year’s conference’s motto was ‘It Starts with Farmers’, and it is always good to hear the opinions of farmers.
Another thing I enjoyed was the networking. The participants were not passively listening to the sessions, they were engaging in conversations with different kinds of stakeholders at the same time. I would say the conference has moved the mission forward.
This is an important event, as it is a hub and a ground, a chance to bring all different stakeholders into the same place. Also, a chance to reiterate what I said before, that this is a dialogue, this is a conversation. It’s also an ever-changing landscape, the market for sustainability and sustainable certification is rapidly changing. So, without engaging in meaningful conversations, we cannot do it.
This is one of the missions of Better Cotton as well, and one of the missions of this year’s conference.
A key cotton-producing country with a strong track record of innovation and sustainability in agriculture, Australia is the latest step in our traceability journey.
In its inaugural meeting, the Multistakeholder Dialogue brought together different sectors to share experiences and challenges to improve sustainability in cotton production.
Today we celebrate World Cotton Day 2023, an annual commemoration of one of the world’s most renewable resources and a commodity that supports approximately 100 million families.
At Better Cotton, we’re working every day to support and strengthen cotton growing communities so they can keep growing the crop they rely on. As the world’s largest cotton sustainability initiative, our strategic aims are to embed sustainable farming practices and policies; enhance well-being and economic development; and drive global demand for sustainable cotton. We believe in the power of sustainable cotton to transform livelihoods and the environment.
World Cotton Day was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2021. The annual date is 7 October, but this year is being celebrated on 4 October with a World Cotton Day 2023 event hosted by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Vienna, Austria.
This year’s theme is “Making cotton fair and sustainable for all, from farm to fashion.”
We’re proud to have our own Jacky Broomhead, Senior Traceability Manager, presenting at WCD 2023. She’s discussing ‘Traceability as an innovation for the cotton sector’ – a topic we’ve been focusing on as we prepare to launch our Traceability Solution next month and continue to explore how we can create more opportunity for farmers and the rest of the sector.
We’ve also this week had CEO Alan McClay speak at The Economist’s Sustainability Week in London, participating in a panel called ‘Word on the High Street – Making Fashion and Cosmetics Sustainable.’
This is a movement and not a moment, and we hope everyone – brands and retailers, manufacturers, producers and consumers – will join us and be part of something better.
Image courtesy of the World Trade Organization.Read more
Photo Credit: BCI/Vibhor Yadav
Location: Kodinar, Gujarat, India. 2019.
Description: Cotton community harvesting cotton.
Photo Credit: Nisha Onta, WOCAN
Millions of women around the world dedicate their lives to cotton production, and yet their representation and contributions aren’t fairly reflected within the sector’s hierarchies.
It’s with this in mind that Better Cotton recently launched its 2030 Impact Target for Women’s Empowerment. Over the coming years, we aim to reach one million women in cotton with programmes and resources that promote equal farm decision-making, build climate resilience, or support improved livelihoods. What’s more, we commit to ensuring that 25% of field staff are women with the power to influence sustainable cotton production.
To achieve this, we’ll collaborate closely with leading organisations to create the environment for field-level change. Here, we speak to Nisha Onta, Regional Coordinator for Asia at WOCAN, to understand the topic’s complexities and obstacles preventing women from advancing their careers in cotton. Nisha is amongst four keynote speakers at this year’s Better Cotton Conference, taking place in Amsterdam from June 21.
Historically, what have been the barriers to access to training for women in sectors such as cotton farming?
There are a lot of research findings which show that the major barrier for women to access training are time poverty, access to information and restrictions on mobility.
Time poverty simply means there is just not enough free time in the lives of women to add more training to their schedule. It is called the ‘triple burden’ of women. Women are responsible for productive, reproduction and communal roles. Therefore, in order to make sure we want to invite more women to train, organisers will have to provide childcare facilities, the timing of the training has to be reasonable for them and the training should address the triple burden so it is not adding to their already packed schedule of responsibilities.
Access to information is also critical, there are many instances that women are simply not aware of the availability of training or resources. Therefore, the usual mode of communication, such as sending training schedules to local representatives and news in the media might not reach the women we are trying to train. Perhaps using local women cooperatives and other mediums that are accessible to women could increase their participation.
Mobility issues can be due to cultural issues or simply the issue of infrastructure. If the training is scheduled for the evening but local safe transport is not available, for example. In some communities, women may not be allowed to travel to participate in trainings, then the organisers will have to use different strategies to convince the head of the households to give permission for the women to attend.
How influential will the provision of training for women be to increasing their representation in decision-making roles?
Ensuring that there’s capacity for women to participate in decision-making is critical to increasing their representation. If the system is not designed to include women in leadership positions, no matter how much training is available, they’ll never have equal opportunities. Therefore, a systematic rethink is required to create the space for women to participate and influence the cotton sector they contribute so much to.
How important will support from organisations like Better Cotton be to enabling this shift within the sector?
Organisations like Better Cotton can be catalysts to advance gender equality in the cotton sector. Better Cotton’s vast network touches millions of farmers around the world and this infrastructure will be important to driving changes at the field-level. Better Cotton’s Women’s Empowerment Impact Target will serve an important purpose to the sector if we’re to see women afforded the chances that have historically been set aside for men.
By 2030, what infrastructural changes would you like to see within agriculture to better support women?
There needs to be the space for women to voice their opinion and influence the sector’s development through decision-making positions. There has to be more direct resources such as trainings, credit and grants for women led business. These changes will inspire and impact future generations across agriculture and may also encourage the creation of more women-led businesses in the cotton value chain.
Ninety-nine percent of the world’s cotton farmers are smallholders. And whilst production capacities per farmer may be small, together, they represent the bedrock of an entire industry, enabling its global reach.
With the launch of our recent 2030 Impact Target to promote Sustainable Livelihoods, we’re committed to increasing the net income and resilience of two million cotton farmers and workers.
It’s a bold ambition and one we won’t be able to reach without the support of a vast network of partners. In this Q&A, we hear from Better Cotton Council member and Solidaridad’s Senior Policy Director for Sustainable Fashion, Tamar Hoek, about the complexity of this topic and the role Better Cotton can play in supporting smallholders.
In supporting the development of Better Cotton’s Smallholder Livelihoods Impact Target, what issues were you and Solidaridad most keen to see the organisation address and how do you think its target will contribute to achieving this?
We are glad that Better Cotton decided to include net income and resilience for farmers as one of its targets. The livelihoods of farmers and farm workers depend on the price that is paid for the cotton but also on how capable the farmer is of dealing with uncertainties in production. For Solidaridad, the topic of living income has been high on our agenda for years. With the scale that Better Cotton brings, this new target can potentially lead to a higher income for a lot of farmers around the world, which is the first step towards a living income. The target will hopefully lead to appropriate tools for increasing net income, greater awareness in the value chain, best practices and income benchmarks that are needed to eventually scale the improvements.
With the scale that Better Cotton brings, this new target can potentially lead to a higher income for a lot of farmers around the world, which is the first step towards a living income.
Tamar Hoek, Better Cotton Council member and Solidaridad’s Senior Policy Director for Sustainable Fashion
What influence would increasing cotton farmers’ net income have on their ability to promote more sustainable agricultural practices and react to shocks and stressors in the market and the environment?
First of all, increasing a net income should give the farmer the opportunity to improve their livelihood, the situation of his/her family and to save for unexpected situations. Then, improvements can allow for payment of better wages and working conditions, the purchase of health and safety equipment, and perhaps investment into more sustainable pesticides and fertilisers. We all know that the price that is paid for cotton is not enough for all of these investments, both socially and environmentally. Therefore, the increase of the price – and with that the net income – is a start that will allow for a lot of improvements that are needed for more sustainable production. (Editor’s note: While Better Cotton strives for the collective improvement of sustainable livelihoods, our programmes have no direct influence over pricing or commercial activities)
Given Better Cotton’s global reach, can you discuss the potential for its Impact Target to address structural poverty which persists in the sector?
Hopefully, Better Cotton will join forces with other organisations in the industry to scale the impact of the target and collectively come to a living income demand for all cotton farmers in the world. Better Cotton will need to lobby with policymakers, local governments and other stakeholders in the value chain to make sure that the right enabling environment is in place to get rid of systemic issues. Addressing structural poverty is ambitious but that will not happen overnight with just raising the net income of a group of farmers and looking at their resilience. It eventually needs a whole value chain to change and, for that, Better Cotton needs to work collaboratively.
Photo Credit: Jay Louvion. Headshot of Better Cotton CEO, Alan McClay in Geneva
Better Cotton made significant strides in 2022 towards our vision of a world where more sustainable cotton is the norm. From the unveiling of our new and improved reporting model to a record 410 new members joining in one year, we prioritised on-the-ground change and data-driven solutions. The development of our traceability system entered a new phase with the stage set for pilots to commence, and we secured funding of over 1 million EUR to continue our work for traceable Better Cotton.
We have continued this momentum into 2023, kicking the year off with our Programme Partner Meeting in Phuket, Thailand under the twin themes of climate change and smallholder livelihoods. Our commitment to knowledge sharing continued as we collaborated with ABRAPA, the Brazilian Association of Cotton Producers, to organise an Integrated Pest Management workshop in Brazil in February, with the aim of sharing research and innovative initiatives regarding the control of pests and diseases in the cotton crop. We are committed to supporting all efforts to reduce pesticide use.
As we approach the end of the first quarter of 2023, we’ve been taking stock of the current sustainability landscape and mapping out how we can best use our resources and expertise at Better Cotton to address the challenges and opportunities on the horizon.
Welcoming a new wave of industry regulation and introducing Better Cotton traceability
2023 is an important year for sustainability as a growing set of regulations and legislation are being implemented around the world. From the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles to the European Commission’s initiative on substantiating green claims, consumers and lawmakers have wised up to ambiguous sustainability claims like ‘zero emissions’ or ‘eco-friendly’ and are taking steps to make sure claims are verified. At Better Cotton, we welcome any legislation that supports a green and just transition and recognises all progress on impact including at field level.
Photo Credit: Better Cotton/Eugénie Bacher. Harran, Turkey, 2022. Cotton going through a ginning machine, Mehmet Kızılkaya Teksil.
In late-2023, following our supply chain mapping efforts, we will begin to roll out Better Cotton’s global traceability system. The system includes three new Chain of Custody models to physically track Better Cotton, an enhanced digital platform to record these movements, and a new claims framework which will give members access to a new Better Cotton ‘content mark’ for their products.
Our commitment to traceability will ensure Better Cotton Farmers, and particularly smallholders, can continue to access increasingly regulated markets, and we will drive significant growth in the volume of traceable Better Cotton. Over the coming years, we plan to create additional benefits for Better Cotton Farmers including local investment by providing direct connections with retailers, brands, and customers.
Optimising our approach and launching the remaining Better Cotton Impact Targets
In line with growing calls for evidence on sustainability claims, the European Commission has also issued new rules on corporate sustainability reporting. Most notably, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive came into force on 5 January 2023. This new directive introduces stronger reporting rules for companies operating in the EU and pushes for greater standardisation in reporting methodologies.
After more than 18 months of work, we announced a new and improved approach to our external reporting model at the end of 2022. This new model tracks progress over a multi-year timeframe and integrates new farm performance indicators aligned with the Delta Framework. In 2023, we will continue to share updates on this new approach in our Data & Impact blog series.
During the first half of 2023, we will also be launching the remaining four Impact Targets connected to our 2030 Strategy, focused onpesticide use (as mentioned above), women’s empowerment, soil health and smallholder livelihoods. These four new Impact Targets join our climate change mitigation target to complete our plan to make cotton better for the farmers who produce it and for all those who have a stake in the future of the sector, as well as for the environment. These progressive new metrics will allow better measurement and drive change across five key areas to ensure greater lasting economic, environmental and social benefits at the farm level for cotton-growing communities.
Unveiling our new Better Cotton Principles and Criteria
For the last two years, we have been revising the Better Cotton Principles and Criteria, which lay out the global definition of Better Cotton. As part of this revision, we are going further to integrate key components of regenerative agriculture, including core regenerative practices such as maximising crop diversity and soil cover while minimising soil disturbance, as well as adding a new principle on improving livelihoods.
We are nearing the end of our review process; on 7 February 2023, the draft P&C v.3.0 was officially approved for adoption by the Better Cotton Council. The new and improved Principles and Criteria are expected to be launched in the first half of 2023, followed by a transition year, and will come into full effect in the 2024-25 cotton season.
See you at the 2023 Better Cotton Conference
Last but not least, in 2023 we are looking forward to once again convening industry stakeholders at the 2023 Better Cotton Conference. This year’s conference will take place in Amsterdam (and virtually) on 21 and 22 June, exploring the most salient issues and opportunities in sustainable cotton production, building on some of the topics which we’ve discussed above. We are excited to gather our community and welcome as many of our stakeholders as possible at the conference. We hope to see you there.
Do you want to know what the largest cotton sustainability programme in the world is up to? Keep up to date with the latest developments and hear from BCI Farmers, Partners and Members in the new BCI Quarterly Newsletter. BCI Members also receive a Monthly Member Update.
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The Better Cotton Living Income Project: Insights from India
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