Better Cotton is the world’s leading sustainability initiative for cotton. Our mission is to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment.
In just over 10 years we have become the world’s largest cotton sustainability programme. Our mission: to help cotton communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment.
Better Cotton is grown in 22 countries around the world and accounts for 22% of global cotton production. In the 2022-23 cotton season, 2.13 million licensed Better Cotton Farmers grew 5.47 million tonnes of Better Cotton.
Today Better Cotton has more than 2,700 members, reflecting the breadth and diversity of the industry. Members of a global community that understands the mutual benefits of sustainable cotton farming. The moment you join, you become part of this too.
The founding premise of Better Cotton is that a healthy sustainable future for cotton and the people that farm it is in the interests of everyone connected with it.
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Better Cotton today announces that it will be launching myBetterCotton, a new portal for Better Cotton Members, later this year. Access to the portal will be granted to Members in a phased rollout, starting mid-2023 and continuing throughout the rest of the year.
The myBetterCotton portal has been created in order to improve the Better Cotton membership experience, taking into account the responses from our 2022 Member Feedback Survey. The new portal will provide a platform for Members to connect, collaborate and network, whilst making it easier for them to engage with Better Cotton.
The myBetterCotton portal is built around four key areas:
‘My Membership’ – empowering Members to take control of their organisation’s information and keep it updated, this section will map out the onboarding process and allow Members to review and manage open or pending actions.
‘My Community’ – a space for Members to engage, collaborate and network online. Direct chat and discussion group features will offer Members the opportunity to share opinions, discuss news and talk about their successes and challenges with one another. Members will also be able to view events and webinars and register to attend.
‘My Sourcing’ – where Retailer and Brand Members can explore sourcing guidance, submit their cotton consumption and review their goals, and keep up to date with their progress towards meeting targets.
‘My Claims’ – allowing Members to explore claims guidance and facilitate submissions of marketing and communications materials for review. Members will be able to review any claims they submitted previously.
myBetterCotton is our new and exciting meeting place for Members to network and learn more about Better Cotton. Our vision is that it will help newcomers to Better Cotton blossom into seasoned Members who promote Better Cotton and believe in our mission to improve farmer livelihoods and the environment. We will share regular updates and moderate your insightful discussions and look forward to welcoming you online over the course of 2023.
Paula Lum Young Bautil, Director, Membership & Supply Chain at Better Cotton
Members will receive more information about myBetterCotton, including when they can expect to receive access to the portal, by email in the coming months.
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.
Photo Credit: Marc Plus Filmes Eireli/Carlos Rudney Arguelho Mattoso Location: SLC Pamplona, Goiás, Brazil, 2023. Description: Dr Paul Grundy (left) and Dr Peter Ellsworth (right).
From 28 February to 2 March 2023, Better Cotton held a workshop in collaboration with ABRAPA, the Brazilian Association of Cotton Producers on Integrated Pest Management (IPM). IPM is an ecosystem approach to crop protection that combines different management practices into a strategy for growing healthy crops.
Taking place in Brasilia, the workshop brought together a range of international experts, with presentations and discussions on the latest research and best practices. It also included a field trip to a farm to look at the different ways pest management is executed on a large-scale farming system, including both the successes and challenges.
During the workshop, we sat down with Dr Peter Ellsworth, Professor of Entomology and Extension IPM Specialist at the University of Arizona and Dr Paul Grundy, Technical Lead for IPM at CottonInfo in Australia to talk about their experiences and expertise in IPM.
Let’s start with some definitions – can you explain to me what a biopesticide is?
Dr Peter Ellsworth: In terms of what most people think, it just means a biologically derived pesticide. A pesticide is just something that kills a pest. What a lot of people don’t understand is that a pest is only an organism out of place or out of time. So that could be a weed, it could be a virus, a bacterium, an insect or a mite.
Dr Paul Grundy: I’d describe it as a pathogenic organism that you can spray for the control of a pest. It will be either a virus, fungus or a bacterium. A key advantage is that many biopesticides have a narrow target range and can work well within an IPM program.
What about beneficials, natural enemies and cultural controls?
Dr Peter Ellsworth: When it comes to natural enemies and beneficials, there’s a little nuance there. A natural enemy would be usually some arthropod that feeds on other arthropods, but it could include the pathogens that naturally kill our insects. A beneficial includes all natural enemies, but also includes our pollinators and other organisms that have value in our system.
Dr Paul Grundy: Cultural controls are a range of things. It could be something as simple as an agreed sowing or crop end date. Essentially, it can be anything that entails a crop management tactic that disadvantages a pest.
Peter, can you explain the Arizona scouting and monitoring method that you developed?
Dr Peter Ellsworth: Sure – it’s just counting! But it’s about knowing where to count. In the case of Bemisia whiteflies, you have an animal that can colonise any part of the plant. It can be anywhere on any of the hundreds of leaves on the plant. So, years ago, we did studies to figure out exactly which leaf is most representative of the overall distribution of whitefly adults on the plant. Then we did the same thing for the eggs and nymphs.
Basically, the method is about counting down to the fifth leaf from the top of the plant, turning it over, and when there are three or more adult whiteflies on this leaf, classifying it as ‘infested.’ You also count large nymphs – you detach the leaf, turn it over and you look at a disc the size of a US quarter, using magnifying loupes that we have outfitted with a properly sized template, and if there’s one nymph in that area it’s infested. You tally these two counts up, and when you have a certain number of infested leaves and infested leaf discs, you know if it’s time to spray.
You’re from Australia and the US, which mainly have large cotton farms – but when it comes to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) for smallholders, how much is transferable?
Dr Paul Grundy: Conceptually, it’s the same thing. Pest management is a people business, so the principles for IPM are just as applicable on a small scale as they are on a large scale. There are obviously different logistical scales associated, but the principles are very similar.
Dr Peter Ellsworth: Yeah, the principles I would say are identical. But there are a couple of notable things that change what a smallholder can do. One of them is area-wide factors. Unless the smallholder is terribly well connected with their community and many, many other smallholders cooperate, they don’t have the ecological landscape engineering opportunities that Mato Grosso has. Large farms can do very specific things around isolation, crop placement and timing and sequencing that a smallholder just wouldn’t be able to take advantage of. These area-wide approaches represent important prevention or avoidance tactics that reduce pest pressures on your cotton crop.
The other thing is the hazards. It depends on the smallholder, but for the most part, some of the safety procedures and equipment aren’t necessarily available there, so the stakes are so much higher.
What’s more important in IPM, people or technology – and how do you think about data and its importance in IPM?
Dr Peter Ellsworth: There’s no reason for IPM without people because we define what a pest is. I always say no bug was born to be bad, we make it bad. We place value on specific things in our world, whether that’s agricultural production, or having a mosquito-free home, or running a non-rat-infested restaurant.
Dr Paul Grundy: From a technology and research perspective, we use data to understand and describe what’s going on and to determine whether what we’re putting in place is successful or otherwise. So, if we look at pesticide use data and then we look at pest resistance testing data, often you can match those to data sets up to understand on-farm changes. Typically, a change in resistance will more than reflect a change in chemical use patterns, which is why it’s important to have that on-farm data. We have a saying in Australia which is “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”.
How important is international collaboration in IPM?
Dr Paul Grundy: I’ve learned a lot from international collaboration. For example, in preparation for the possibility that Begomoviruses might enter Australia following the spread of its vector, the silver leaf whitefly in the mid-2000’s, we assembled a team that went to Pakistan to learn what we could from those with experience and form connections with people who we would be able to talk to should this problem emerge in Australia. That since came around full circle through Better Cotton – with my subsequent involvement with Pakistan researchers who have wanted to learn from us how to better implement IPM. The exchange of information is always valuable in both directions.
Dr Peter Ellsworth: I’ve worked a lot in northern Mexico. Sometimes people say, “You’re in US cotton, why are you helping Mexican growers?” I say that they’re our neighbours and any problem they have could be ours. They jointly eradicated boll weevil and pink bollworm with us, for example. They’re important partners in business and in everything.
Some people asked the same question about why I’m coming to Brazil, but I don’t look at the cotton industry in terms of competitors. I do think as an industry worldwide, there are many more ties that bind than separate.
Photo Credit: Better Cotton, Ashvini Shandi. Location: Hingla, Maharashtra, India. Description: Manisha during her field visits to Better Cotton farmers.
While women play a pivotal role in the cotton sector across the world, they are frequently held back by many forms of discrimination, leading to underrepresentation in decision-making, lower wages, less access to resources, limited mobility, increased threats of violence and other serious challenges.
Gender discrimination is a key issue in the cotton sector, which is why ensuring that all workers enjoy decent working conditions, with fair pay and equal opportunities for learning and progression, is a top priority for Better Cotton, laid out in our Principles and Criteria.
This year, in recognition of International Women’s Day, we want to celebrate those building workplaces where women can thrive. In order to do so, we spoke with Manisha Giri, a Producer Unit Manager (PUM) from India. Manisha has been driving change through her Farmer Producer Organisation (FPO), an organisation that helps members to save costs, achieve fairer prices for their cotton, and develop new ways to boost their income. We sat down with her to learn about her experiences.
Please could you tell us a little bit about yourself?
My name is Manisha Giri, I am 28 years old, and I live in Palodi, a village in the Indian state of Maharashtra. I have been working as a PUM with Better Cotton since 2021, having completed a BSc in Agriculture at the VNMKV University in Parbhani.
As a PUM, my responsibilities include planning, data monitoring, and solving challenges faced by Field Facilitators (FFs). I have oversight on FF training sessions, which are provided to both cotton farmers and cotton workers. I also cross-check with farmers and workers whether minimum wages are being duly paid, whether workers are being forced to work by farmers, whether they are facing any sort of discrimination, and whether there is any pay parity based on gender.
Do you feel like your workplace allows women to thrive?
When I joined, I wasn’t confident, I was always nervous and I questioned myself, as it is a big project. To help me, the Programme Partner team constantly gave examples of the many female Better Cotton staff members in the India team in order to motivate me. They always said that once women are determined to do something, they end up achieving it. When I see women around me fulfilling their personal responsibilities whilst working at a high level, it really motivates me.
What is your proudest achievement?
Getting women together and starting a FPO with them is something I am very proud of. This was a big achievement for me, as gathering women for training and collective action in villages is very difficult. Sometimes, even though the woman wants to participate, their families or husbands don’t allow them.
What other challenges did you face, and how did you overcome them?
We realised that organic carbon in our area was fast depleting and farmers had no livestock anymore, so we zeroed in on making compost for farmers in the FPO. We decided to start with vermicomposting, allowing us to promote sustainable agriculture. Now, 300 female Better Cotton farmers are working with the FPO, and we have reached a point where the demand is so high that we are falling short of vermi beds.
Photo credit: Better Cotton, Punam Ghatul. Location: Hingla, Maharashtra, India. Description: Picking is one of the most labour-intensive activities, done mostly by women. Manisha with farmers and workers are here engaged in this activity.
What did you learn from this experience?
As a working woman, I have my own identity even though when I am back home, I continue to take care of my family. I want women to go beyond being recognised as someone’s wife – perhaps eventually men will be recognised as someone’s husband.
What changes do you hope to see in the next ten years?
With the entrepreneurial training sessions that are being conducted, I had set myself a target of getting 32 entrepreneurs trained, and setting up five businesses. However, I have already achieved my three-year target in one year, setting up 30 businesses.
In the next ten years, I expect that people will use exclusively vermicompost, and we will contribute to slowing down climate change. Due to the decreased use of chemical pesticides and increased use of biopesticides, farmers will get increased yield with less expenditure.
I predict that we will have more female staff, and I envision women playing an integral part in decision-making. Women will come to us with ideas to expand their businesses, and they will become independent entrepreneurs.
Photo credit: Better Cotton, Vitthal Siral. Location: Hingla, Maharashtra, India. Description: Manisha with a field facilitator, conducting a training session with farmers on field.
Read more about Better Cotton’s work on women’s empowerment:
Despite a challenging economic environment, Better Cotton saw a significant increase in support in 2022 as it welcomed 410 new members, a record for Better Cotton. Today, Better Cotton is proud to count more than 2,500 members representing the entire cotton sector as part of our community.
74 of the 410 new members are Retailer and Brand Members, who play a vital role in creating demand for more sustainable cotton. The new Retailer and Brand Members come from 22 countries – such as Poland, Greece, South Korea, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and more – highlighting the organisation’s global reach and the demand for change across the cotton sector. In 2022, the Better Cotton sourced by 307 Retailer and Brand Members represented 10.5% of world cotton, demonstrating the relevance of the Better Cotton approach to systemic change.
We are delighted to have 410 new members joining Better Cotton during 2022, showing recognition of the importance of Better Cotton’s approach to achieving transformation in the sector. These new members demonstrate their support for our efforts and commitment to our mission.
Paula Lum Young Bautil, Director of Membership and Supply Chain, Better Cotton
Members fall within five key categories: civil society, producer organisations, suppliers and manufacturers, retailers and brands and associate members. No matter the category, members are aligned on the benefits of sustainable farming and are committed to the Better Cotton vision of a world where more sustainable cotton is the norm and farming communities thrive.
Below, read what a few of these new members think about joining Better Cotton:
Through our social purpose platform, Mission Every One, Macy’s, Inc. is committed to creating a more equitable and sustainable future for all. Better Cotton’s mission of promoting better standards and practices within the cotton industry is integral to our goal of achieving 100% preferred materials in our private brands by 2030.
Macy’s US
JCPenney is firmly committed to providing high-quality, affordable and responsibly sourced products for our customers. As a proud member of Better Cotton, we hope to drive industry-wide sustainable practices that improve lives and livelihoods around the world and further our mission of serving America’s diverse, working families. Our partnership with Better Cotton will better enable us to meet our customers’ expectations and deliver on our sustainable fiber goals.
JCPenney, US
Joining Better Cotton was important to Officeworks to promote responsible sourcing and help transform the global cotton industry, both from a human rights and an environmental perspective. As part of our People and Planet Positive 2025 commitments, we are committed to sourcing goods and services in more sustainable and responsible ways, including sourcing 100% of our cotton as Better Cotton, organic cotton, Australian cotton or recycled cotton for our Officeworks private label products by 2025.
Officeworks, Australia
As part of our All Blue sustainability strategy, we aim to expand our sustainable product collection and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. At Mavi, we prioritise not harming nature during production and ensuring that all of our All Blue design choices are sustainable. Our Better Cotton membership will help to raise awareness among our customers and within our own ecosystem. Better Cotton, with its social and environmental benefits, is included in Mavi’s definition of sustainable cotton and supports Mavi’s sustainability goals.
We are pleased to announce that registration for the 2023 Better Cotton Conference is now open!
The conference will be hosted in a hybrid format with both virtual and in-person options for you to choose from. Join us as we bring the global cotton community together once again.
Date: 21-22 June 2023 Location: Felix Meritis, Amsterdam, Netherlands or join us online
Register now and take advantage of our exclusive early-bird ticket prices.
Attendees will have the opportunity to connect with industry leaders and experts to explore the most salient issues in sustainable cotton production such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, traceability, livelihoods and regenerative agriculture.
In addition, we’re delighted to host a Welcome Reception in the evening of Tuesday 20 June and a Conference Networking Dinner on Wednesday 21 June.
Don’t wait – early bird registration ends on Wednesday 15 March. Register now and be a part of the 2023 Better Cotton Conference. We look forward to seeing you there!
At the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in India this week, the organisation reaffirmed its commitment to supporting Better Cotton as it develops a carbon insetting framework to promote and incentivise sustainable agricultural practices.
Better Cotton first outlined its ambitions to establish an insetting mechanism at last year’s CGI meeting in New York.
Hillary Clinton with Better Cotton’s Chief Operating Officer, Lena Staafgard
At its most recent outing, in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, Better Cotton’s Chief Operating Officer, Lena Staafgard discussed the wealth of opportunities across India whilst acknowledging that farmers must be rewarded for delivering on Better Cotton’s climate mitigation targets.
Already, Better Cotton’s network in India has greatly benefitted from adopting more sustainable practices. In the 2020-21 growing season, for example, Better Cotton farmers reported on average 9% higher yields, 18% higher profits, and 21% lower emissions than their conventional cotton growing counterparts.
Still, underpinned by its comprehensive supply chain traceability system that’s scheduled to launch at the end of this year, Better Cotton believes insetting mechanisms can accelerate environmental and social progress, supporting smallholder livelihoods across its network.
In theory, the insetting mechanism would incentivise farmers to produce more sustainable cotton by facilitating the trade of insetting credits and offering rewards based on each operation’s credentials and continued progress.
Until now, it has been impossible to build a carbon insetting mechanism to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the cotton supply chain at scale due to a lack of traceability.
Farmer centricity is a key pillar of Better Cotton’s work, and this solution ties into the 2030 Strategy, which lays the foundation for a strong response to climate threats within the cotton value chain, and mobilises action for change with farmers, field partners and members.
Right now, Better Cotton is piloting its traceability system in the Gujarat and Maharashtra states.
With enhanced supply chain visibility, brands will learn more about where the cotton they source comes from and therefore be better positioned to reward sustainable practices via farmer repayments that incentivise further on-field improvements.
The CGI meeting in India – led by Secretary Hillary Clinton – was a huge success for Better Cotton as it conveyed its aspirations for further progress within the cotton sector.
It is obvious that by coming together with other commitment makers there is scope for more impact.
Lena Staafgard, Chief Operating Officer, Better Cotton
Photo Credit: Better Cotton/Florian Lang Location: Surendranagar, Gujarat, India. 2018. Description: Better Cotton Farmer Vinodbhai Patel is explaining to a Field Facilitator (right) how the soil is benefiting form the presence of earthworms.
Better Cotton has published a management response to a recently-published independent study carried out by Wageningen University and Research (WUR). The study, ‘Towards more sustainable cotton farming in India’, explores how cotton farmers who implemented Better Cotton recommended agricultural practices achieved improvements in profitability, reduced synthetic input use, and overall sustainability in farming.
The three year-long evaluation aimed to validate the impact of Better Cotton on agrochemical use and profitability among cotton farmers participating in Better Cotton’s programmes in Maharashtra and Telangana, India. It found that Better Cotton Farmers were able to reduce costs, improve overall profitability, and safeguard the environment more effectively, compared with non-Better Cotton Farmers.
The management response to the study provides acknowledgement and analysis of its findings. It includes the next steps that Better Cotton will take to ensure that the findings of the evaluation are used to strengthen our organisational approach and contribute to continuous learning.
The study was commissioned by IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, and Better Cotton.
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Better Cotton Management Response: Validating The Impact of Better Cotton on Cotton Farmers in India
We are pleased to confirm the launch of a Better Cotton Programme in Uzbekistan. As the sixth largest cotton producer globally, this programme brings us one step closer to our vision of a world where sustainable cotton is the norm.
Uzbekistan’s cotton sector has come a long way in recent times. After years of well-documented issues of systemic forced labour, the Uzbek government, International Labour Organization (ILO), Cotton Campaign, civil society institutions and human rights activists have been successful in driving state-led labour reforms in the Uzbek cotton industry. As a result, Uzbekistan has successfully eliminated systemic child labour and forced labour in its cotton sector, according to recent ILO findings.
Driving more progress across the Uzbek cotton sector
Building on this success, Better Cotton believes that commercial incentives can help ensure that the newly privatised cotton sector continues to reform and meet international standards. The Better Cotton Programme in Uzbekistan has the potential to provide that incentive by linking cotton farmers to international markets and supporting them to continuously improve their practices.
Through implementation of the Better Cotton Standard System, we will provide robust and credible decent work monitoring systems that can demonstrate impact and results made on the ground. We will also introduce physical traceability, under which cotton from licensed farms will be fully segregated and traced through the supply chain. Any licensed Better Cotton from Uzbekistan will, at the present time, not be sold via the mass balance chain of custody.
Better Cotton exists to work in contexts with both environmental and social challenges. Uzbekistan’s cotton sector, government and the farms themselves have made enormous progress, and we are looking forward to building on this multi-stakeholder engagement and to drive further positive change across the sector.
Better Cotton CEO Alan McClay.
The Participating Farms
The International Finance Corporation and GIZ began piloting implementation of the Better Cotton Principles and Criteria in Uzbekistan in 2017. The pilots provided a strong entry point for our programme, with 12 large farms already benefiting from significant training, six of which have maintained participation. These are the same six farms now participating in the programme during the 2022-23 cotton season. All the farms were assessed against the Better Cotton Principles and Criteria by trained and approved third-party verifiers.
Farms with manual picking received additional decent work monitoring visits that focused on extensive worker and community interviews, along with management interviews and documentation reviews. This additional decent work monitoring looked specifically at labour risks due to the country’s past challenges. In total, nearly 600 workers, management and community leaders, local authorities, and other stakeholders (including civil society actors) were interviewed as part of our decent work monitoring. The findings of these third-party verification visits and the decent work monitoring were documented and discussed with technical labour experts and contributed to our enhanced assurance activities, which confirmed that no systemic forced labour was present on any of the farms. Like in all other Better Cotton countries, not all participating farms received a license this season. We will continue to support both the farms that received licenses as well as those who were denied licenses through our capacity building efforts so that they can continuously improve their practices, and are equipped to meet the core requirements of the Standard moving forward.
Looking Ahead
As we begin our work in Uzbekistan, we are concentrating on several key areas where progress still needs to be made. These include ensuring the effective implementation of labour unions and the appropriate use of worker contracts. We are energised by the progress that has been but do not expect our journey ahead to be without challenges. We will succeed together thanks to a solid foundation, strong partnerships, and commitment from all involved stakeholders.
We look forward to supporting the continuous improvement of Uzbek cotton production.
Lisa Ventura joined Better Cotton in March 2022 as our first Public Affairs Manager. She had previously worked for more than eight years at the World Economic Forum, focusing on public-private partnerships and engaging stakeholders to drive social change. With a keen interest in business and human rights, she collaborated with business, public sector and civil society leaders to build a more resilient, inclusive global economy.
We caught up with Lisa to seek her thoughts on how Better Cotton will engage in the sustainability legislative landscape and beyond.
Why is Better Cotton becoming more active in advocacy and policy making?
To fulfil our mission and help transform cotton production, while also supporting more sustainable sourcing and trade, we need a supportive public policy environment. Better Cotton aims to advocate for policies that support millions of farmers and farm workers worldwide to grow cotton more sustainably and improve their livelihoods.
Concretely, what does this mean?
We will engage in public policy advocacy in a variety of ways. First, by engaging with think tanks, other sustainability standards, civil society, governments, international organisations, brands and retailers to ensure the farmers and farm workers’ interests are at the heart of policy-making.
Secondly, we are keeping our Better Cotton Principles & Criteria (P&C) up to date. For example, following a public consultation in the past few months, we are currently reviewing the P&C to ensure it not only complies with new legislation, but also sets an ambitious framework for sustainable farming.
Finally, we will partner more with our country offices and other local stakeholders to address barriers to restoring the environment and upholding good labour standards.
Could you name one upcoming piece of legislation that you are closely monitoring and why?
There are quite a few, but one that is top of my mind is the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. We commend that this directive covers both adverse environmental and human rights impacts across organisations – and their supply chains. It is an important step forward.
However, we want to ensure that farmers and farm workers’ livelihoods are taken into consideration in such policies, so far they are at risk of being excluded of global markets. Furthermore the EU should cooperate with all developing countries, especially producing ones to develop policies that will address the root causes of climate change and truly support smallholders and other vulnerable groups.
This directive will also help create growing momentum for enabling transparent supply chains. Better Cotton is currently developing a physical traceability solution that we believe can truly transform the cotton sector and support millions of farmers.
Any reflections from COP27?
One of COP27’s four priorities was collaboration. With growing inequality, it’s vital to re-affirm a commitment to the global climate agenda, while ensuring the participation of all relevant stakeholders. I did notice a lack of representation from the groups and countries most affected by climate change, such as indigenous peoples to smallholder farmers.
More action is needed to support vulnerable communities, where people are increasingly on the frontline of climate change. In addition, smallholder farmers currently receive just 1% of agricultural funds, yet represent a third of production. We need new ways to help farmers and producers gain access to finance in order for them to adapt to climate change, diversify their businesses and adopt sustainable practices. Sharing success stories at COP27 is central to replicating and scaling these approaches. For example, ABRAPA, the Brazilian Association of Cotton Producers and a Better Cotton’s Strategic Partner,[1] explained how farm owners were remunerated for preserving an area greater than that required by Brazilian law.[2] This has a direct impact on farmers’ livelihoods.
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We’ve updated our Data Privacy Policy
These updates are intended to reflect changes to the Better Cotton Platform’s default sharing settings and data use in our Audit management system.
You don’t need to do anything to accept these changes – they’re effective from today, 2 April 2025.
You can read the full text by visiting our Data Privacy Policy page.
