Better Cotton To Become a Regenerative Standard

Better Cotton, the world’s largest cotton sustainability initiative, has announced that it will become a regenerative standard within the next year, further strengthening its ongoing commitment to protect and restore the environment and improve conditions for cotton farming communities around the world.

Speaking at the 2025 Better Cotton Conference in Izmir, Türkiye, Eva Benavidez Clayton, Senior Director of Demand and Engagement at Better Cotton, said:

“It is increasingly clear that we need approaches that don’t simply mitigate or reduce harm, but that actively restore the environment. I am therefore pleased to share that over the next 12 months, Better Cotton will complete the remaining steps to become a regenerative standard.”

“While Better Cotton’s field level standard is already recognised to cover many of the core tenets of regenerative agriculture, this move will further ensure that farmers who meet our standard are adopting the most commonly agreed regenerative practices.”

“This is a natural step in line with our commitment to constantly improve our standard, which reflects the latest scientific insight as well as our enduring focus on the economic and social wellbeing of everyone involved in cotton farming.”

As part of the steps it is now taking, Better Cotton is updating the Principles & Criteria which underpin its standard, as well as working to strengthen the capacity of Better Cotton Programme Partners to implement the standard and developing an outcome-based reporting framework.

The announcement was welcomed by other members on the regenerative practices panel at the Better Cotton Conference.

Peter Bunce, Head of Cotton at Indigo Ag, commented: “Thinking about the impact, particularly for the future of the programme, and how you built that into the regenerative programme, hands up, I think this is great progress, well done for doing it.”

Muzaffer Turgut Kayhan, President at IPUD, added:”Better Cotton showing an interest in owning regenerative agriculture is very positive.”

Notes to Editors

General

• Better Cotton supports more than two million farmers around the world, who are required to align with the organisation’s field-level standard to attain a licence.
• Better Cotton’s Principles & Criteria lay out the global definition of Better Cotton through six guiding principles.

Regenerative Agriculture

• Better Cotton will also provide training to approved Certification Bodies to ensure that they too are equipped to assess farmers against the revised Principles & Criteria.
• In 2022, Better Cotton published an article which outlined the organisation’s approach to promoting regenerative agriculture.
• In 2023, Better Cotton launched a project in Telangana, India, to support 7,000 farmers in their adoption of regenerative practices.
• For the remainder of the year, Better Cotton will conduct pilots to advance this work and simultaneously revise its Principles & Criteria.
• Next year, Better Cotton will collaborate with its in-country partners to provide tailored support for farmers as they adopt more regenerative practices.