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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In the push to transform the way cotton and other crops are grown around the world, there remains a big roadblock: the lack of a common language for what sustainability means and how to report and measure progress. This was the impetus for the Delta Project, an initiative to bring leading sustainability standard organisations together to build a common framework for measuring and reporting on sustainability performance in the agricultural commodity sector, starting with cotton and coffee. The project was made possible by a grant from the ISEAL Innovations Fund, which is supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO and spearheaded by Better Cotton and the Global Coffee Platform (GCP).
Over the past three years, Delta Project partners — Better Cotton, GCP, the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) Expert Panel on Social, Environmental and Economic Performance (SEEP) of Cotton Production, the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) and the Cotton 2040 working group on impact metrics alignment* — developed, field-tested and published a set of 15 cross-commodity environmental, social and economic indicators to measure sustainability at the farm-level. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed with the Cotton 2040 working group members to gradually incorporate relevant metrics and indicators into their monitoring and evaluation (M&E) systems.
The Delta indicators align with and allow users to report progress against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the tools and methodologies are broad enough to be used by other agricultural sectors, as well.
To learn more about the project and what it means for Better Cotton Partners and Members, we spoke to Eliane Augareils, Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at Better Cotton.
Why is it important to create a shared language for sustainability standards to communicate and report on sustainability?
Eliane Augareils, Senior Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at Better Cotton.
EA: Every standard has different ways of defining and measuring sustainability. In the cotton sector, for example, even when we are assessing the same thing, like water savings, we all have very different ways of measuring and reporting on it. That makes it challenging for a cotton stakeholder to understand the added value of sustainable cotton, whether that’s Better Cotton, organic, Fairtrade, etc. It is also impossible to aggregate the progress made by multiple standards. Now, if we implement what we committed to through the Delta Project, we can analyse the sustainable cotton sector’s progress as a whole.
What is the significance and value of the MOU signed by the Cotton 2040 working group?
EA: The MOU is an important result of the collaboration between all the cotton standards and organisations in the working group. It’s a commitment from these standards to integrate all the relevant Delta indicators into their respective M&E systems. It’s very important because it shows a strong willingness by the cotton sector to establish a common definition of sustainable cotton and a common way to measure progress. It also represents an increased spirit of collaboration between standards to act collectively towards our shared goals.
How were the indicators developed?
EA: We carried out a thorough consultation process for a year, reaching out to over 120 people representing 54 organisations from the agricultural private and public sectors. We first identified the sustainability impact priorities for the cotton and coffee sectors, and the stakeholders formulated nine shared goals across the three dimensions of sustainability — economic, social and environmental — all linked to the SDGs.
We then looked at over 200 indicators used by several commodity platforms and initiatives to measure progress towards these sustainability goals, in particular the Coffee Data Standard developed earlier by GCP, and the Guidance Framework on Measuring Sustainability in Cotton Farming Systems published by the ICAC-SEEP panel. Considering the interdependencies between the three sustainability dimensions, we recognised that the set of Delta indicators would need to be seen and adopted as a whole. This meant we needed to get to a much smaller set. We eventually selected 15 indicators, based on their global relevance, usefulness and feasibility in monitoring progress towards sustainable agricultural commodities. We then worked with experts to identify the best existing methodologies and tools, or develop new ones, to collect and analyse the data points needed for each indicator.
How were the indicators tested?
EA: Many of the organisations involved in the project ran pilots to test the draft indicators on real farms. These pilots provided critical feedback on the draft indicators, especially on the methodologies we developed to calculate them. Some indicators were very straightforward, for instance calculating yields or profitability, which is something we all do already. But other indicators like soil health, water and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were completely new for most of us. The pilots helped us understand the feasibility of implementation, and then we adapted the methodologies accordingly. For the water indicator, we refined it to make it more adaptable to different contexts, such as smallholder settings and different climates. In areas where monsoons are common, for example, the amount of water must be calculated differently. Without the pilots, we would only have a theoretical framework, and now it’s based on practice. Additionally, based on the lessons learnt from the pilots, we added limitations for each indicator, which allows us to be very transparent on the implementation and data collection challenges. For some indicators, like GHG emissions, that require a lot of data points, we also tried to identify which data points are the most important to get representative results.
How will the Delta Framework be integrated into existing M&E systems of the participating sustainability standards?
EA: So far, some of the standards — including Better Cotton, Fairtrade, Textile Exchange, the Organic Cotton Accelerator and Cotton Connect — have piloted several of the indicators, but they haven’t all been implemented in their M&E frameworks yet. The learnings of those pilots can be seen here.
Has Better Cotton already incorporated the Delta Framework indicators into the Better Cotton M&E system?
EA: Delta indicators 1, 2, 3a, 5, 8 and 9 are already included in our M&E system and indicators 12 and 13 are included in our assurance system. We are planning to gradually integrate the others into our revised M&E system.
How will the Delta Framework benefit Better Cotton Members and Partners?
EA: It will provide our members and partners with more robust and relevant information they can use to report their contribution to more sustainable cotton production. Instead of our previous eight results indicators, we will measure our progress on the 15 from the Delta Framework, plus a few others linked to our Principles & Criteria. This will enable Better Cotton Members and Partners to better track progress made towards the Better Cotton expected outcomes and impact.
The changes in how we report on GHG emissions and water will be of particular interest. We will systematize the calculation of GHG emissions and hopefully be able to give an approximate carbon footprint for Better Cotton cultivation in each of the countries where we are active. The indicators will also help us better assess the water footprint of cultivating Better Cotton. Until now, we only quantified the volume of water used by Better Cotton Farmers compared to non-Better Cotton Farmers, but in the near future, we will also calculate irrigation efficiency and water productivity. This will show how much cotton is produced per unit of water used and how much water is actually benefitting a farmer’s crop. In addition, we are now shifting our M&E system towards longitudinal analysis, in which we will analyse the same group of Better Cotton Farmers over multiple years, rather than comparing the performance of Better Cotton Farmers to the performance of non-Better Cotton Farmers each year. This will give us a better picture of our progress in the medium and long term.
What will these changes mean for Better Cotton farming communities?
EA: Standards often take a lot of time collecting participating farmers’ data, yet the farmers rarely see any results from this. One of our key goals for the Delta Project was to give farmers their data in a meaningful way. For example, a smallholder farmer doesn’t benefit much from knowing their carbon footprint, but they would benefit a lot from knowing the evolution of their soil organic content and of their pesticide and fertiliser use over the years and how that relates to the evolution of their yield and profitability. Even better if they know how that compares to their peers. The idea is to provide this information as soon as possible after the end of the harvest, so that farmers can use it to adequately prepare for the next season.
Will the Delta Framework demand more of farmers’ time for data collection?
EA: No, it shouldn’t, because one of the objectives of the pilot was to source more data from secondary sources like remote sensing devices, satellite images, or other data sources that can provide us with the same information with greater accuracy, all while minimizing time spent with the farmer.
How will we know if the indicators have been successful and supported progress towards the SDGs?
EA: Because the indicators are closely aligned with the SDG framework, we think the use of the Delta indicators will certainly help in tracking progress towards the SDGs. But in the end, the Delta Framework is only an M&E framework. It’s what the organisations do with this information and how they use it to guide farmers and partners in the field that will determine whether it helps them progress towards the actual goals.
Is data from different standards being stored in one place?
EA: At the moment, every organisation is in charge of keeping their data and consolidating it to report externally. At Better Cotton, we will use the data to create country ‘dashboards’ as well as dashboards for our Programme Partners so that they can see precisely what is going well and what is lagging.
Ideally, a neutral entity like ISEAL could create a centralized platform where data from all the (agriculture) standards could be stored, aggregated and analysed. We have developed comprehensive guidance in the Delta Framework Digitisation Package to support organisations in ensuring that the data is registered and stored in a way that would allow for aggregation in the future. However, the difficulty will be to convince the standards to share their data while complying with data privacy regulations.
What’s next for the Delta Framework and indicators?
EA: An indicators framework is a living thing. It is never ‘done’ and will need constant nurturing and evolution. But for now, the indicators, along with their corresponding methodologies, tools and guidance materials, are available on the Delta Framework website for anyone to use. Moving forward, we are looking for an organisation to take ownership of the Framework and regularly review the relevance of the indicators as well as the potential new tools and methodologies available to measure them.
What does this framework mean for the future of the cotton sector and for sustainable cotton production?
EA: A key point is the fact that different sustainable cotton actors will use a common language for sustainability and report in a harmonised way so that we can unify and strengthen our voice as a sector. The other benefit of this work is the increased collaboration among the main sustainable cotton actors. We consulted many organisations within the cotton sector, we piloted the indicators together, and we shared our learnings. I think that the outcome of the Delta Project so far is not only the framework itself, but also a stronger willingness to collaborate with each other — and that’s very important.
* The Cotton 2040 working group includes Better Cotton, Cotton Made in Africa, Cotton Connect, Fairtrade, myBMP, Organic Cotton Accelerator, Textile Exchange, Forum for the Future and the Laudes Foundation
Acute, unintentional pesticide poisoning is widespread among farmers and farm workers, with smallholder cotton farmers in developing countries particularly affected. Yet the full extent of health effects remains poorly understood.
Here, Better Cotton Council Member and Pesticide Action Network (PAN) UK International Project Manager, Rajan Bhopal, explains how a ground-breaking app stands to capture the human impact of pesticide poisoning. Rajan presented T-MAPP at the Better Conference in June 2022 during a lively ‘disruptors’ session.
Rajan Bhopal speaking at the Better Cotton Conference in Malmö, Sweden, in June 2022
Why is the issue of pesticide poisoning largely invisible?
The term ‘pesticides’ covers a huge range of products containing varied chemistry, meaning the many signs and symptoms of poisoning can be difficult for clinicians to diagnose if they are not aware of the issue. In addition, many farmers suffer health impacts without seeking treatment, particularly in remote, rural areas, where communities lack access to affordable medical services. Too many cotton producers accept these effects as part of the job. And we know that where incidents are diagnosed by clinicians, they’re often not recorded systematically or shared with government ministries responsible for health and agriculture.
Existing health monitoring surveys can be challenging to conduct, analyse and report on. That’s why we’ve developed T-MAPP – a digital monitoring system that accelerates data collection and provides rapid analysis that turns data into accurate results on how pesticides are affecting farmers’ lives.
Tell us more about your new pesticide app
The T-MAPP app
Known as T-MAPP, our app makes data collection on pesticides poisoning more efficient, enabling field facilitators and others to collect comprehensive data on the products, practices and locations that are linked to high rates of serious pesticide poisoning. This includes detailed information farms and crops, use of protective equipment, particular pesticides and how they’re being applied, and health impacts within 24 hours of exposure. Once the data is collected and uploaded, T-MAPP allows survey managers to see analysed results in real-time via an online dashboard. Importantly, this knowledge can be harnessed to identify which pesticide products are causing poisoning and inform more targeted support.
What have you discovered so far?
Using T-MAPP, we have interviewed 2,779 cotton producers in India, Tanzania and Benin. Cotton farmers and workers are suffering widespread pesticide poisoning with significant impacts on wellbeing and livelihoods. On average, two in five had suffered pesticide poisoning in the past year. Severe symptoms of poisoning were common. Some 12% of farmers reporting severe effects that include, for example, seizures, loss of vision, or persistent vomiting.
What is being done with this information, or how could it be used?
It’s helping us understand the extent and severity of acute pesticide poisoning and find ways to tackle the issue. In some countries, regulators have used the app to monitor pesticides post-registration. In Trinidad, for example, certain pesticides could be banned for causing high rates of poisoning. Sustainability organisations are using the app to identify high risk practices and target their farmer capacity building efforts. In India, for example, the data has helped Better Cotton to focus an awareness campaign on the risks of pesticide mixtures. Elsewhere, similar surveys in Kurdistan led governments to taking action to prevent children’s exposure and involvement in pesticide spraying.
What is your message for brands and retailers?
Invest in understanding and addressing the health and environmental issues in the cotton sector, include misuse of pesticides, which are likely to be occurring in your supply chain. And by supporting high-quality capacity building programmes, you’ll be helping to protect farmers’ health, livelihoods and ability to cultivate cotton in the future.
Find out more
For more information on how Better Cotton addresses crop protection risks, visit our Pesticides and Crop Protection page.
Photo Credit: BCI/Florian Lang
Location: Surendranagar, Gujarat, India. 2018.
Description: An farm-worker is preparing a field with the help of a manual plough, which is drawn by bulls for cotton cultivation.
By Alan McClay, CEO, Better Cotton. This opinion piece was first published by Reuters Events on 9 March 2022.
Irreversible ecosystem collapse is looming. If nothing is done to stop it, farming systems face a potentially catastrophic future, with severe implications for society the world over.
This isn’t hyperbole. It’s the verdict of hundreds of the world’s leading climate scientists, as recently expressed in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) latest report. The writing is already on the wall. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), over one third of the world’s soils are already degraded due to erosion, salinisation, compacting, acidification and chemical pollution. The result? An absence of the diversity of life that is integral to nourishing plants and crops.
The core idea of regenerative agriculture is that farming can give back to, rather than take from, the soil and society.
As every farmer knows, healthy soil is the foundation of productive agriculture. Not only does it help cycle nutrients and filter water, it helps increase resilience to climate change by returning carbon to the ground. Cue the new buzzword on the block, “regenerative agriculture”. From one day to the next, the phrase seems to be everywhere, from the mouths of climate advocates to the speeches of leading politicians. Not since the “Green Revolution” of the 1950s has a farming-related buzzword gathered so much pace so quickly. As ever, critics have not been slow in coming forward. Their arguments follow conventional lines. Some say the term lacks rigour – “regenerative”, “organic”, “sustainable”, “carbon-smart”, all spawn from the same woolly basket. Others maintain that it’s an old idea rehashed in modern clothing. What were the earliest agriculturalists of the Fertile Crescent if not regenerative farmers?
Such criticisms hide more than a little truth. The term regenerative agriculture can certainly mean different things to different people. And, yes, it does embrace concepts such as reduced tilling, crop rotation and cover crops that, in some cases, go back millennia. But to gripe about terminology is to miss the point. For one, the vagaries of definition are not nearly as great or problematic as some like to claim. The core idea of regenerative agriculture – namely, that farming can give back to, rather than take from, the soil and society – is hardly controversial.
Fuzzy terminology can confuse consumers and, worse still, facilitate greenwashing.
Secondly, farming techniques vary enormously, meaning specific methodologies are always going to be hard to pin down. Practices pursued by farmers in west Africa, where the soil is notoriously infertile, for instance, will be different from those adopted in India, where pests and erratic weather are chief concerns.
Thirdly, lack of complete consensus doesn’t necessarily lead to a complete lack of action. Take the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals; the specifics of each goal may not please everyone, but they please people enough to amass a huge amount of collective energy.
In a similar vein, fresh terms can refresh our thinking. A decade ago, conversations about soil health and crop yields tended heavily towards the technical. A little less fertiliser here, a little more fallow time there. Today, with talk of regenerative agriculture increasingly widespread, extractivist agriculture itself is now on the table for debate.
Of course, clear definitions are important. In their absence, misunderstandings can arise in practice that slow or even undermine the transition to more sustainable farming. Likewise, fuzzy terminology can confuse consumers and, worse still, facilitate greenwashing. In this regard, Textile Exchange’s recently published Landscape Analysis of regenerative agriculture marks a valuable and timely contribution. Built through dialogue at all levels of the farming community, it establishes an important set of basic principles that all major players can get behind.
We especially welcome the report’s acknowledgement of benefits beyond carbon storage and emission reductions – important as both certainly are. Regenerative agriculture is not a one-trick pony. Improvements to soil health, habitat protection and water systems are just some of the other ancillary environmental benefits it delivers.
We see the fact of regenerative agriculture now being on everyone’s lips as a huge positive.
Likewise, as an organisation committed to improving the livelihoods of millions of cotton producers, the emphasis on social outcomes is also to be applauded. As critical actors in the agricultural system, the voices of farmers and workers are fundamental to deciding how regenerative farming is framed and what outcomes it should aim for.
To reiterate, we see the fact of regenerative agriculture now being on everyone’s lips as a huge positive. Not only is the unsustainability of today’s intensive, input-heavy farming increasingly well understood, so too is the contribution that regenerative models can make to turning this around. The challenge going forward is to turn growing awareness into on-the-ground action. The issues that regenerative farming seek to address are urgent. At Better Cotton, we’re big believers in continuous improvement. Rule number one? Get out of the blocks and get started.
One key lesson we have learned over the last decade or so is that effective action won’t happen without an effective strategy to back it up. That’s why we encourage our participating field-level partners to establish a comprehensive soil management plan, spelling out tangible steps for improving soil biodiversity and preventing land degradation. Another crucial impetus to action is telling a convincing story. Farmers won’t transition from what they know on the basis of anecdotes and promises. Hard evidence is required. And, for that, investment in monitoring and data research is needed.
Fashions, by nature, move on. In the case of regenerative agriculture, expect definitions to be refined and approaches to be revised. As a basic concept of how we ought to farm, however, it is firmly here to stay. Neither the planet nor farmers can afford it otherwise.
Soil is quite literally the foundation of farming. Without it, we could neither grow cotton nor support our growing global population. We know first-hand at Better Cotton that improved soil health can enhance productivity and yields, which also directly improves farmer incomes. Not only that, but many soil health management practices are also climate change mitigation measures. These measures stand to make a big impact when considering that global soils contain more carbon than vegetation and the atmosphere combined.
That’s why soil health is one of five impact targets that we are developing at Better Cotton as part of our 2030 Strategy, and an area we will be focusing our attention on over the coming weeks.
In our new Soil Health Series, we’re exploring the wonderful and complex universe beneath our feet, looking at why good soil health is so important and what Better Cotton, our partners and Better Cotton Farmers are doing to support healthy soils and the future of sustainable agriculture.
To kick off the series, we outline the five key factors that impact soil health. Learn more in the video above.
Look out for more content over the coming weeks, or visit our soil health webpage to learn more.
After two years of adapted online engagement due to the pandemic, we are excited to share the dates for the next Better Cotton Conference.
Hosted in a hybrid format—with both virtual and in-person options for joining—we look forward to the opportunity to engage face-to-face again. As we consider the ongoing pandemic in our planning to allow safe and inclusive participation, details on our programme, registration, location and more will be shared soon.
Transforming the cotton sector is not the work of one organisation alone. Save 22-23 June in your calendars to join the Better Cotton community at this major event for stakeholders in the sustainable cotton sector.
Save the date and join us in shaping a more sustainable future for cotton!
Better Cotton’s mission is to help cotton farming communities survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment. Since 2009, Better Cotton has developed, tested and applied our Standard, whilst growing our reach to include 2.4 million licensed farmers around the world. Now is the time to deploy this scale to generate deeper impact.
Today, Better Cotton launches our 2030 Strategy, including a climate change mitigation target to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions per tonne of Better Cotton produced by 50% by 2030. This is the first of five ambitious targets to be set, with the remaining four expected to be released by the end of 2022.
These progressive new metrics will allow better measurement across five key areas to ensure greater lasting economic, environmental and social benefits at farm level for cotton growing communities.
We – together with Better Cotton Members and Partners – want to see real, measurable change on the ground in line with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. We encourage continuous improvement at farm level, wherever cotton farmers are on their sustainability journey.
Alan McClay, CEO, Better Cotton
Headshots of Better Cotton CEO, Alan McClay, by Jay Louvion, in Geneva.
On 8 December 2021, Ecotextile News published “Better Cotton plans €25m traceability system”, speaking to Alia Malik, Senior Director of Data and Traceability, and Josh Taylor, Senior Traceability Coordinator, about our collaboration across the sector and long-term plans for developing full physical traceability in the cotton supply chain.
Innovating towards full physical traceability
While we are learning from traceability solutions that exist, we also understand that achieving full physical traceability is a hugely ambitious, very complex piece of work that will require new approaches to suit the needs along the cotton supply chain. We have estimated that the project will require €25 million in funding over four years and launch by the end of 2023 to supplement the current mass balance system.
Better Cotton will launch a digital traceability platform. So we’re going to go for the great big innovation now.
Alia Malik, Better Cotton, Senior Director of Data and Traceability
Alia Malik, Better Cotton, Senior Director of Data and Traceability
Collaborating across the sector
Better Cotton has been working closely with a panel of retailers and brands since last year to understand how we may deliver traceability in a way most meaningful for our members and to facilitate the inclusion of producers in increasingly regulated international value chains by connecting the supply chain through traceability. We understand that continued collaboration will be essential to inspire, influence and learn from our partnerships.
ISEAL are very interested in this because, with the changing regulatory landscape, a lot of different standard systems outside of apparel, as well as in it, are looking at what tweaks they need to make to support better traceability. So it’s something that we have the opportunity to lead and to help shape for the sector.
One of the clear lessons from the UN Climate Change Conference or COP26 in Glasgow is that we won’t get anywhere without working together. On the other hand, if we do manage to engage in genuine collaboration, there is no limit to what we can achieve.
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as imperfect as they may be, are a very powerful framework to enable better and deeper collaboration—between public, private and civil society actors—as they all steer us in the same direction. Through our climate change approach and five ambitious impact target areas, Better Cotton’s 2030 Strategy to be released in December supports 11 out of the 17 SDGs. As Glasgow showed us just how urgent and imperfect the collaboration to unite against climate change is and how we need to go further, we look at how the SDG framework and the Glasgow Climate Pact is supported by the Better Cotton Strategy.
Alan McClay, Better Cotton, CEO
Three Overarching Themes from the Glasgow Climate Pact and How Better Cotton’s 2030 Strategy and Climate Change Approach Supports Their Objectives
Prioritising Action Now
The Glasgow Climate Pact emphasises the urgency of scaling up climate action and support, including finance, capacity-building and technology transfer, in line with the best available science. Only if we do this can we collectively enhance our capacity for adaption, strengthen our resilience and reduce our vulnerability to climate change impacts. The agreement also underlines the importance of taking into account the priorities and needs of developing countries.
Section II, Article 7 from the Agreement
How Better Cotton’s 2030 Strategy Supports This: With the recent publication of our first-ever global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) study conducted by Anthesis Group, we already have hard data that is enabling us to develop targeted emissions reduction pathways for Better Cotton’s many diverse local contexts. Now that we have established a baseline for Better Cotton GHG emissions, we are working to embed mitigation practices more deeply into our programmes and Principles and Criteria and further refine our monitoring and reporting methods. Details on our climate change approach and mitigation target will be shared as part of our 2030 Strategy.
The Ongoing Importance of Collaboration
How Better Cotton’s 2030 Strategy Supports This: Youth climate activists like Greta Thunberg have inspired millions of young people around the world to join their call for greater action on climate change. We have heard these calls at Better Cotton.
As we finalise our climate approach and 2030 strategy, we are leveraging our network and partnerships, but even more importantly, we are ensuring that farmers’ and farm workers’ needs are centred — particularly for women, young people, and other more vulnerable populations — through continued and enhanced dialogue. New approaches are being developed to hear directly from workers, for example, as we pilot worker voice technology in Pakistan. We’re focused on driving field-level innovations that can directly benefit these individuals, which is why we are drawing on our close to 70 field-level partners across 23 countries to design country-level action plans for both mitigation and adaptation. We are also engaging with new audiences, particularly global and national policymakers to advocate for change.
This article recognizes the important role of non-Party stakeholders, including civil society, indigenous peoples, local communities, youth, children, local and regional governments and other stakeholders, in contributing to progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Section VIII, Article 88 from the Agreement
A Just Transition That Actively Involves Marginalised Groups
The introduction to the Glasgow Climate Pact underscores the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, the protection of biodiversity, and the importance of the concept of ‘climate justice’ when taking action to address climate change. Article 93 builds on that, urging Parties to actively involve Indigenous peoples and local communities in designing and implementing climate action.
Introduction and Section VIII, article 93 from the Agreement
How Better Cotton’s 2030 Strategy Supports This: In a video address at the close of COP26, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres acknowledged young people, Indigenous communities, female leaders and all those leading the ‘climate action army.’ At Better Cotton, we understand that cotton farmers and their communities are at the forefront of this ‘climate action army’ and will continue to serve them first and foremost. That’s why a ‘Just Transition’ is one of the three pillars of our climate approach.
We know that the impact of climate change will disproportionately affect those who are already disadvantaged — whether due to poverty, social exclusion, discrimination or a combination of factors. Throughout 2021, we have been talking directly to farmers and farm workers in India and Pakistan to better understand the challenges that they face and develop new strategies that prioritise the concerns and voices of smallholder cotton farmers, as well as farm workers and marginalised groups in farming communities.
Learn more about Better Cotton’s climate approach, including five impact target areas, when we launch our 2030 Strategy later this year.
The world has been watching as global leaders, experts and activists alike have been making their voices heard at the much-anticipated UN Climate Change Conference – COP26.
In a series of blogs throughout the event, we’ve been looking at how Better Cotton’s climate approach will guide greater action under three pathways — mitigation, adaptation and ensuring a just transition —and what that willmean in real terms for Better Cotton Farmers and partners. As COP26 draws to a close, we are zeroing in on the mitigation pathway, taking a closer look at the impact of cotton on the climate emergency.
Keeping 1.5 Degrees Within Reach
By Kendra Park Pasztor, Better Cotton, Senior Manager of Monitoring & Evaluation
The first COP26 goal — secure global net zero by mid-century and limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels — is without a doubt the most ambitious. It’s also our only option if we want to prevent the most catastrophic climate disasters from occurring. To achieve this goal, COP26 has called on countries to commit to ambitious 2030 emissions reductions targets.
What are Greenhouse Gas Emissions?
Greenhouse gases or GHGs include carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxides. Sometimes ‘carbon’ is used as shorthand for ‘GHG emissions.’ Generally, emissions are expressed in ‘carbon equivalent’ – CO2e.
At the same time, agriculture also has a central role to play in emissions reductions as forests and soil store large quantities of atmospheric carbon, and fertiliser application and power for irrigation systems are responsible for significant emissions. Recognising this, 26 nations at COP26 have already set out new commitments to create more sustainable and less polluting agricultural policies.
Understanding Better Cotton’s Contribution to Climate Change Mitigation
On average, Better Cotton production had a 19% lower emissions intensity per tonne lint than comparison production across China, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkey.
At Better Cotton, we are taking the cotton sector’s role in climate change mitigation seriously. In October of this year, we released our first report quantifying global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) of Better Cotton and comparable production. This is an important first step that is helping us set our emissions reduction target in our 2030 Strategy.
The Better Cotton GHG study, conducted by Anthesis Group and commissioned by Better Cotton in 2021, found significantly lower emissions from Better Cotton-licensed farmers’ cotton production.
Another piece of analysis in the study assessed emissions from Better Cotton (or recognised equivalent) production constituting over 80% of licensed Better Cotton’s global production across Brazil, India, Pakistan, China and the US. This data is enabling us to develop targeted emissions reduction strategies for Better Cotton’s many local contexts.
Translating Data into Action: Setting Better Cotton’s 2030 Target
Anthesis’ study provided us with valuable insights that we are using — along with the latest climate science — to set a 2030 target for Better Cotton GHG emissions reduction, aligned with the UNFCCC Fashion Charter of which Better Cotton is a member. Now that we have established a baseline for Better Cotton GHG emissions, we can further refine our monitoring and reporting methods moving forward.
Learn More
Register to hear Kendra speak at the session “Achieving Ambitious Corporate Targets: How Can Sustainability Standards Contribute To Landscape Sourcing Area Climate And Sustainability Programmes?” taking place on 17 November at the Making Net-zero Value Chains Possible event.
Learn more about Better Cotton’s climate approach, including key focus areas, when we launch Better Cotton’s 2030 Strategy later this year. Find more information on our focus on GHG emissions and our recently released study with Anthesis.
After a sustained build-up and a launch that began with much fanfare and hope, the UN Climate Change Conference – COP26 – has drawn to the end of its first week.In a series of blogs, we’re looking at how Better Cotton’s climate approach will guide greater action under three pathways — mitigation, adaptation and ensuring a just transition—and what that will mean in real terms for Better Cotton Farmers and partners.
Read Alan McClay’s blog on the importance of collaboration here.
Enabling a just transition
By Chelsea Reinhardt, Better Cotton, Director of Standards and Assurance
The second COP26 goal – ‘Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats’ – underscores the stark reality that communities all around the world are already facing the effects of climate change, and those effects will only become more severe over time. As the world pushes to curb emissions, finding ways to adapt and cope with those realities will be a key focus of climate efforts moving forward.
Adaptation is already an integral part of our work at Better Cotton as well as a pillar of our new climate approach, but an equally important part of adaption will be ensuring that strategies are socially inclusive. That’s why pathway three of our approach is about enabling a just transition.
Chelsea Reinhardt, Better Cotton, Director of Standards and Assurance
What is a ‘just transition’?
A just transition puts those most affected by climate change, and least prepared to adapt, front and centre.
The International Labour Organization’s (ILO) 2015 Guidelines for a Just Transition, negotiated between governments, employers, and their organisations, as well as workers and their Trade Unions, established a global understanding for the term “just transition”. It describes it as a process “towards an environmentally sustainable economy, which “needs to be well managed and contribute to the goals of decent work for all, social inclusion and the eradication of poverty”.
COP26
What does this mean for Better Cotton?
Supporting a just transition is by design the most blue-sky area under our climate change approach. We know that further effort will go into defining this pillar, as we learn more and collaborate with partners. So far, for Better Cotton and our partners, a just transition will:
ensure that the shift towards climate-smart farming prioritises workers’ rights and protection;
enable greater access to finance and resources for farmers, farming communities and workers; and
understand and work to mitigate the impacts of climate migration as well as the impacts on women, youth, and other more vulnerable populations.
The impact of climate change will disproportionately affect those who are already disadvantaged – whether due to poverty, social exclusion, discrimination, or a combination of factors. These groups are often less represented in social dialogues and risk having decisions made for them rather than participating directly in shaping the transformation to a more sustainable world. For Better Cotton, a primary focus will be on supporting our smallholder cotton farmers, as well as farm workers and marginalised groups in farming communities.
For example, we know that cotton workers are already at high risk of labour violations and poor working conditions due to the seasonal and temporary nature of their work. In many regions, average temperatures will increase further during peak cotton weeding and picking seasons, and farmers suffering from reduced yields will be less able to pay living wages and provide benefits for workers.
Through the Better Cotton climate approach, we are building on our decent work production principle and diving deeper into our understanding of labour risks to develop local solutions. This will take the form of new worker feedback tools and partnerships with organisations operating within farming communities to provide workers with grievance mechanisms.
Photo Credit: BCI/Khaula Jamil
Location: Rahim Yar Khan, Punjab, Pakistan, 2019.
Description: Farm-worker Ruksana Kausar (wife of BCI Farmer) with other women who are involved in the tree nursery project developed by Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) Implementing Partner, WWF, Pakistan.
We are also putting women at the forefront of the just transition. In many Better Cotton regions, women farmers lack formal rights, such as land ownership; however, they often have significant influence over farming decisions. Women also represent the majority of cotton farm workers in countries such as India and Pakistan. And, we know that women are even more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, since they often have less access to information, resources or capital than male counterparts. Therefore, it is essential that women are involved in designing approaches to climate change mitigation and adaptation and that they are active participants in key decisions around resource allocation and prioritisation.
Cotton 2040 are now inviting you to join us for three roundtable events, where Cotton 2040 and its partners will come together to future-proof the cotton sector through climate and social adaptation.
Find more details on the roundtable events and register here.
Learn more
Learn more about Better Cotton’s climate approach, including key focus areas, when we launch Better Cotton’s 2030 Strategy later this year.
Read more about Better Cotton and GHG emissions here.
Earlier this year, Cotton 2040, with partners Acclimatise and support from Laudes Foundation, authored the first-ever global analysis of physical climate risks across global cotton growing regions for the 2040s, as well as a Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment of cotton growing regions in India. Cotton 2040 are now inviting you to join us for three roundtable events where we will dive into this data in deeper detail, sharing a geography-specific analysis of the expected impacts and implications across different cotton growing regions, seeking to understand the critical impacts for actors across the supply chain and to collectively prioritise both urgent and long-term action across the cotton sector.
Apply to participate in this series of roundtable events through November and December 2021, where Cotton 2040 and its partners will come together to future-proof the cotton sector through climate and social adaptation. The three two-hour roundtable sessions are designed to build on each other over the course of five weeks and participants are encouraged to attend all three sessions. Each session will run online twice on each date, to suit time zones across the Americas, Europe, Africa, India and South East Asia.
Learn more
Find more details on the roundtable events and register here.
Roundtable 1: Thursday 11 November: Understanding the climate risks facing the cotton sector and exploring the implications for future production
Roundtable 2: Tuesday 30 November: Developing a deeper understanding of the adaptation response required to build a more climate resilient cotton sector
Roundtable 3: Tuesday, 14 December: Shaping a pathway towards collaborative action for a climate resilient cotton sector
Roundtable Conveners:
Dhaval Negandhi, Associate Director of Climate Change, Forum for the Future
Erin Owain, Lead Associate – Climate and Resilience Hub, and Alastair Baglee, Director, Corporates – Climate & Resilience Hub, Willis Towers Watson
Charlene Collison, Associate Director, Sustainable Value Chains and Livelihoods, Forum for the Future
How is Better Cotton contributing?
As part of Cotton 2040’s ‘Planning for Climate Adaptation’ working group, Better Cotton worked with partners to develop the resources released earlier this year, particularly in setting up regional working groups to discuss how to optimise data in India and other regions. We will continue to use this research to feed into our climate strategy and prioritise areas with high climate risk.
Better Cotton looks forward to using the valuable outcomes of the Cotton 2040 Climate Change Adaptation workstream to better understand priority regions to focus on, and to identify specific climate hazards facing farmers in these areas. Better Cotton also welcomes the highly useful research in the India Climate Risk and Vulnerability Assessment report, which points to a strong linkage between climate change resilience and socio-economic factors such as poverty, literacy, and female work participation. This underscores the importance of a holistic approach in helping cotton farmers better adapt to climate change, and reinforces the need for Better Cotton to work closely with multiple partners on this front.
Gregory Jean, Better Cotton, Standards and Learning Manager
The Better Cotton Initiative is a proud member of Cotton 2040 – a cross-industry partnership that brings retailers and brands, cotton standards and industry initiatives together to align efforts in priority areas for action. Read more about Better Cotton’s collaboration with Cotton 2040:
Delta Framework – during 2019 and 2020, we have been working collaboratively with fellow sustainable cotton standards, programmes and codes via the Cotton 2040 Impacts Alignment Working Group to align sustainability impact indicators and metrics for cotton farming systems.
CottonUP – an interactive guide to help brands and retailers fast track sustainable sourcing across multiple standards, the CottonUP Guide answers three big questions about sourcing sustainable cotton: why it’s important, what you need to know and do, and how to get started.
Learn more about Cotton 2040’s ‘Planning for Climate Adaptation’ workstream by visiting their microsite.
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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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.
