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Cotton and the Circular Economy: Register Now for the March Episode of Better Cotton’s Digital Series

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Cotton and the Circular Economy: Register Now for the March Episode of Better Cotton’s Digital Series

Joe Morphet on March 5, 2021

 
Circular business models are on the rise in the apparel and textile industry, but how will this impact the cotton sector and cotton farmers in particular?

Historically, businesses have followed a ‘take-make-waste’ linear model. Beyond consumer use, there have been few systems in place to ensure the original value of products and materials is maintained. Circular business models on the other hand are regenerative and aim to eliminate waste and ensure the continual use of resources.

On Thursday 11 March, BCI will be joined by Nicole Bassett, Co-Founder of The Renewal Workshop, to explore circular businesses in action and their positive contributions to long-term sustainability. We will also dive into the questions that arise on how circularity might impact the cotton sector and cotton farming communities in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Registration

Date: Thursday, 11 March 2021
Time: 15:00-16:00 GMT
Fee: €40

REGISTER HERE 

BCI Members receive a 50% discount – please log into the members only event page on the BCI website to access the discount code.

This episode of the Cotton Sustainability Digital Series is brought to you by H&M.

Benefits of Registration

Once you are registered for the event, you can make full use of the event platform to:

  • Connect with expert speakers ahead of the session
  • Start or join insightful discussion groups with peers
  • Network and make valuable connections
  • Access the episode recording and presentation through March

All series sponsors can be found on our event webpage.

Learn more about how the textile and apparel industry is moving towards circularity in our latest blog.

About the Cotton Sustainability Digital Series

In 2021, BCI launched a new 12-part Cotton Sustainability Digital Series. Sessions and speakers originally curated for BCI’s in-person 2021 Global Cotton Sustainability Conference will now be coming to you live online, at more accessible rates and times across the entire year. Join BCI and partners through 2021 for the monthly Cotton Sustainability Digital Series, where the entire sector will come together to shape a more sustainable future for cotton.

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Better Cotton Onboards Recommendations from the Task Force on Forced Labour and Decent Work

Joe Morphet on January 29, 2021

 
In April 2020, BCI formed the Task Force on Forced Labour and Decent Work to review the current global Better Cotton Standard System. The aim of the Task Force was to highlight gaps and develop recommendations to improve the effectiveness of this system in identifying, preventing, mitigating and remediating forced labour risks. The group was comprised of experts from civil society, retailers and brands, and responsible sourcing consultancies.

The Task Force worked to review current BCI systems, discuss key issues and gaps, and develop proposed recommendations. The process included extensive consultations with a wider group of stakeholders, and culminated in a comprehensive report, published in October 2020 and available in full on the BCI website.

The BCI Leadership Team and Council have now completed a full review of the report’s findings, producing a formal response that also summarises the work that BCI has already carried out as of January 2021. The response outlines BCI’s expected short, mid, and long-term priorities to strengthen our systems on forced labour and decent work.

Alan McClay, CEO of BCI said, ”Decent work and forced labour are crucial sustainability issues within cotton production. At BCI we are committed to strengthening further our capabilities on these issues. As we launch our 2030 strategy, the Task Force recommendations help us do that. The work to implement these recommendations is already underway.”

The response welcomes the comprehensive findings of the Task Force and its identification of multiple areas where BCI will continue to focus more resources and effort. The Task Force has recognised the potential that BCI has – as a truly global network of partners – to enact change across millions of cotton farmers and workers.

The response also recognises the importance of embedding BCI’s forced labour and decent work efforts within the broader BCI strategy. This is reflected in BCI’s 2030 strategy, which includes a strong focus on decent work. We expect that work in some of these recommendation areas will span most of the next decade and even beyond.

BCI will use a phased approach to implement the activities outlined in the plan, tackling quick wins and high-priority areas promptly, whilst maintaining a long-term vision on some of the more challenging work areas that will require dedicated funding and resources. This approach will be informed by risk assessment; focusing first on areas where forced labour risks are high and BCI has a significant footprint.

BCI will look to actively collaborate with others on some of these key challenges, such as effective tools for farm workers to raise grievances. These challenges are faced across the agricultural sector, and BCI expects to work not only with local experts and grassroots organisations, but also with other initiatives to share learnings and pioneer new tools.

BCI has lost no time getting started on some of the key recommendations of the task force and will bring these into effect in time for the next season, beginning in March in the Northern Hemisphere. The BCI Leadership team is extremely grateful to the Task Force members for dedicating their time and expertise to help BCI examine our current approach and forge a path forward to transform our forced labour and decent work capabilities.

A summary of BCI’s plan to onboard the Task Force’s recommendations is available on the BCI website and can be found here.

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Sustainability Remains Front of Mind as Better Cotton Welcomes New Members Through 2020

Joe Morphet on January 28, 2021

As the largest cotton sustainability programme in the world, BCI works with members across the cotton supply chain – from farm to retail – to ensure there is continuous demand for and supply of Better Cotton, the cotton produced by licensed BCI Farmers.

In the second half of 2020, BCI was delighted to welcome 197 new members, including 24 retailers and brands and 170 suppliers and manufacturers, as well as one new civil society organisation and two new associate members.

You can find a list of all members who joined BCI in the second half of 2020 here.

The latest retailers and brands to join BCI and support Better Cotton are: BIG W, DR Ling Indústria e Comércio, Eterna Mode GmbH, Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof GmbH, JD Sport Plc, JYSK, Koton Magazacilik Tekstil Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S., Lands End, Luxottica Group, Maison Tess, Marc Cain GmbH, Masai Clothing Company, Mustang Group, New Balance Athletics, Inc., Newbale Clothing Pty Limited, Peek & Cloppenburg KG Hamburg, Reiss, Sprinter Megacentros del Deporte SL, Stitch Fix. Inc, Suzhou Les Enphants Children Articles Co., Ltd, The Workwear Group Pty Ltd, Tommy Bahama, Wehkamp and Zimmermann Wear Pty Limited.

In 2020, Koton Magazacilik Tekstil Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S. became the first Turkish brand to join BCI. Mrs G√ºlden Yƒ±lmaz, Koton Board Member, said, ”Sustainability is vital for our business and essential to address our consumers’ changing priorities and needs. As an important step in our sustainability journey, we became the first Turkish brand to become a member of BCI. We are proud to raise awareness of the initiative and Better Cotton in Turkey. We aim to source 10 percent of all our cotton-containing products as Better Cotton by the first anniversary of our BCI membership (November 2021), rising to 60 percent over the next five years.”

DelRio (DR Ling) became BCI’s second Brazilian retailer and brand member in 2020. ”By joining BCI, we affirm our purpose to continuously improve our commitment to the environment and more sustainable practices. Our ambition is to progressively expand our sourcing of more sustainable cotton in the coming decade to reach the target of 100% of our cotton sourced as Better Cotton,” said Carlos Pereira de Souza, President, Del Rio.

BCI’s demand-driven funding model means that when BCI’s retailer and brand members source cotton as Better Cotton it directly translates into increased investment in training for cotton farmers on more sustainable practices. Learn more about BCI’s mass balance chain of custody model.

In addition to retailers and brands, 170 new suppliers and manufacturers joined BCI in 2020. Organisations joined from 25 countries including Poland, Peru, South Korea, Egypt and Mauritius. Suppliers and manufacturers form a critical link between Better Cotton supply and demand, and they ensure increased volumes of Better Cotton can flow through the supply chain.

”After a challenging year due to Covid-19, it has been incredibly encouraging to see businesses across the cotton supply chain continue to address sustainability challenges and commit to sourcing and supporting more sustainable cotton,” commented Paula Lum Young-Bautil,Deputy Director, Membership & Supply Chain, BCI.

Through 2020, more than 400 organisations joined BCI, taking BCI’s total membership to just shy of 2,200 members at the end of the year. Find a full list of all BCI Members here.

Learn more about BCI membership.

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BCI Council Elections 2021: Deadline for Member Applications Extended

Joe Morphet on January 14, 2021

 
The deadline for BCI Members to apply for a position on the BCI Council has been extended to 21 January 2021.

Elected by BCI Members, the BCI Council ensures the organisation has a clear strategic direction and policy to fulfil its mission of making global cotton production better for the people who produce it, better for the environment it grows in, and better for the sector’s future.

The Council is equally represented by four BCI membership categories, reflecting the entire cotton supply chain: retailers and brands, suppliers and manufacturers, civil society and producer organisations. There are three seats per membership category, supplemented by up to three additional independent members.

In the upcoming 2021 elections, four seats are up for election, one in each of the following BCI membership categories:

  • Producer Organisations
  • Suppliers and Manufacturers
  • Retailers and Brands
  • Civil Society

Interested BCI Members are invited to submit applications to BCI by 21 January 2021.

BCI Members can find out more and access the application package here.

This is a great opportunity for BCI Members to represent their area of the cotton supply chain, share valuable industry insights, and contribute to BCI’s strategic direction in the coming years, while being part of an exemplary multi-stakeholder governance body.

The electronic elections will take place in February 2021 and the incoming Council will begin its mandate in late March 2021. Please send any questions relating to the elections to:[email protected].

How is the Council Formed?

The General Assembly, consisting of all BCI Members, is the ultimate authority of BCI and elects a Council to represent it. Council positions are open to all BCI Members (except Associate Members). Each membership category has three seats, two elected and one appointed, forming a total of 12 seats. Once elected, the Council has the option to appoint up to three additional independent Council Members. More information on the current composition and open positions can be found in the application package.

View the current BCI Council here.

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Exploring Traceability – What We’re Doing to Make Better Cotton Traceable

Joe Morphet on December 18, 2020

This is an old news post – to read the latest about Better Cotton traceability, please click here. 

The Better Cotton Initiative was founded with a clear vision of making sustainable practices in cotton production the norm around the world. To make such a big impact, scaling our programme quickly was key. With that in mind, we created a Chain of Custody (CoC) framework that incorporates the concept of ”mass balance” – a widely-used volume-tracking system that allows Better Cotton to be substituted or mixed with conventional cotton provided equivalent volumes are sourced as Better Cotton.

Today, BCI is the largest cotton sustainability programme in the world, with more than 10,000 supply chain actors using our Better Cotton Platform. Mass balance has enabled the rapid growth of the amount of cotton sourced as Better Cotton while at the same time facilitating farmers to implement better practices to produce more sustainably. But as our world progresses, we recognise that it is time to explore going beyond this mass balance CoC model to offer full traceability and even more value to Better Cotton farmers and companies.

The Rising Demand for Traceability

What exactly do we mean by “traceability’? While there are many different models for implementation and use, essentially the principle is in the name – the “ability to trace’ something. In our case, cotton. For Better Cotton, this means that, at minimum, we seek to determine the region in which the seed cotton was produced and identify the businesses involved in its transformation to a finished good.

This has never been as important as it is now. As legislation requiring businesses to demonstrate knowledge of their supply chains is becoming more common around the world, companies are not only being asked to know more about the origins of their materials but also about the conditions under which they are produced. Increasing media and academic attention on geopolitical issues, including the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang area of China, has further demonstrated that production location and sustainability are crucially interlinked.

Given this quickly changing operating environment, retailers and brands need to integrate both sustainability and traceability into their standard business practices. BCI already offers companies a powerful way to support sustainable agricultural practices and farmers’ livelihoods, and now we are focusing our attention on making cotton supply chains more traceable as well.

Benefits of Traceability

Up until now, the costs versus benefits of developing a traceability system for Better Cotton have prevented this work, but as the scales tip in the other direction, we are uniquely well-positioned to implement a global traceability system to meet member needs and support us in achieving our mission.

This is due to the shifting in significance of the benefits offered by traceability, which in all three main areas are increasing at every level of the supply chain:

  • Efficiency: contributions in stakeholder reporting, inventory and merchandise management, strategic sourcing enablement, process control and data management
  • Risk management: contributions in regulatory compliance, impact monitoring, contingency planning, forecasting
  • Innovation: contributions in consumer engagement, circular economy and resale, collaboration, process automation and improvement, community of practice and learning, market insight

Greater visibility of supply chains also means that retailers and brands can take greater responsibility and work to address any problems they may find, such as forced labour, poor agricultural practices and more.

Challenges to Implementing Traceability

Implementing traceability is no easy feat. It’s not simply a matter of adding on to existing processes – though we can use the existing participation from members on the Better Cotton Platform as a springboard, developing full traceability will require substantial investment, especially as we work to move quickly on these developments.

Main Challenges

  • Additional resources: This includes, for supply chain actors, the expense of developing internal control systems, potential cost implications from limited supply when many companies request traceable cotton at the same time, and significant associated resource requirements for BCI. A higher level of supply chain assurance also comes at a cost, as verifying the exact origins of a garment requires many more checks and controls.
  • Sourcing and intellectual property concerns: Creating just the right yarn and fabric blends often requires sourcing from several countries of origin – making the idea of “tracing back to the farm’, and it being just one farm, or even country, very unlikely. Concerns about protecting intellectual property add another layer of complexity.
  • Alignment with existing traceability systems: Many companies and other initiatives have begun developing their own traceability systems. The system we develop will need to align and eventually interface with existing traceability systems, from companies, for different technology solutions and country of origin programmes, which will require a great deal of collaboration and coordination.
  • Full member support: Last, but certainly not least, we need to ensure support from all categories of BCI members to move ahead with our traceability plans.

What We’re Doing Now

In July 2020 we had the first meeting of our newly formed multi-stakeholder Chain of Custody Advisory Group, and have begun getting input on priority requirements and key questions. We are also in the process of seeking funding for the first phase and this week have launched the recruitment for additional staff resources to deliver this work.

With the benefits and challenges of creating a Better Cotton traceability system clear, we have developed a high-level plan for moving forward in four distinct phases:

  • Set up and planning
  • Development and piloting
  • Stakeholder engagement and roll-out
  • Monitoring compliance and maintaining performance

With the right funding and resources, we anticipate a solution could be ready as early as 2022, following piloting in late 2021.

As we dive into the first phase of planning, we are consulting with additional members and stakeholders to identify solution requirements, including key data elements, interfaces, operating models, funding arrangements and governance structures. We are also making a detailed budget and project plan. Based on stakeholder feedback, available funding and the likelihood of long-term success, we will then determine what course of action we will take, with the knowledge that we have explored the options in partnership with our members.

Join Us as We Build on Mass Balance to Deliver More Value

While we are working on this new, traceable CoC model, it’s important to note that we are not getting rid of our current mass balance system altogether. Mass balance has an important role to play in achieving scale in sustainability for companies and farmers across the globe. We simply want to build upon this foundation to offer our retailer and brand members greater visibility of their whole supply chain, for those that want it, which ultimately brings us closer to our vision of making sustainability in cotton the norm.

Now is the time to start this work. We will be surveying members and other stakeholders in the new year – please look out for these invitations and share your input. We are also starting recruitment this week to support this work – keep an eye on the Jobs at BCI page.

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The Better Cotton Initiative Launches in Greece

Joe Morphet on December 18, 2020

 
The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) is delighted to announce that the Greek AGRO-2 Integrated Management Standards have been successfully benchmarked as equivalent to the Better Cotton Standard System.

The recognition will promote more sustainable Greek cotton farming. Greece is the largest cotton-producing country in Europe, with more than 45,000 registered cotton farmers. Cotton is planted on approximately 270,000 hectares – 10% of the total agricultural land.

Farmers certified under the AGRO-2 standards who elect to participate in the BCI Programme will now be eligible to sell their cotton as Better Cotton from the 2020-21 cotton season. By the end of 2022, it is estimated that 5,000 farmers will be growing AGRO-2 licensed cotton (equivalent to Better Cotton), on 40,000 hectares, producing around 185,000 bales.

The AGRO-2 Integrated Management Standards were developed by the national Hellenic Agricultural Organisation, ELGO-DEMETER, a statutory body under the Ministry of Rural Development and Food. ELGO-DEMETER and the Inter-Branch Organization of Greek Cotton (DOV) – jointly ELGO-DOV – partnered to promote and implement the AGRO-2 standards for Greek cotton production.

”We are delighted to be working with ELGO-DOV as a strategic partner and welcome Greece as a new BCI equivalent standard. By bringing the two systems together, Greek cotton will be able to contribute to improved farmer livelihoods while increasing the profile of the country’s more sustainable cotton production.”
— Alan McClay, CEO, Better Cotton Initiative.

The benchmarking of the AGRO-2 standards to the Better Cotton Standard System is the culmination of several years of engagement and preparation. The process began in 2017 following interest expressed by Greek stakeholders.

BCI worked with IDH, the Sustainable Trade Initiative, to explore the possibility of a BCI programme in Greece. With initial funding from the Better Cotton Growth and Innovation Fund, a series of stakeholder consultations and assessments were conducted in line with BCI’s benchmarking and start-up process. After an independent comparison of the standards and a comprehensive gap analysis, a viable path towards benchmarking AGRO-2 with the Better Cotton Standard System (BCSS) was identified.

Following a thorough benchmarking review of the six components of the BCSS, modifications were made to the AGRO-2 standards to ensure alignment. Upon completion, Greece began the official BCI country start-up process, culminating in the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement between BCI and ELGO-DOV to recognise AGRO-2 certified cotton as equivalent to Better Cotton.

Photo: ELGO-DOV

About BCI

The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) — a global not-for-profit organisation — is the largest cotton sustainability programme in the world. The Better Cotton Standard System is BCI’s holistic approach to sustainable cotton production which covers all three pillars of sustainability: environmental, social and economic.

In the 2018-19 cotton season, together with their partners, BCI provided training on more sustainable agricultural practices to 2.3 million farmers from 23 countries. BCI is truly a joint effort, encompassing organisations all the way from farms to fashion and textile brands to civil society organisations, driving the cotton sector towards sustainability. Thanks to the support of BCI partners and members, Better Cotton now accounts for 22% of global cotton production.

About ELGO-DOV and the AGRO 2 Integrated Farm Management Standards System

AGRO-2 are Greek production sustainability standards developed and operated by ELGO-DEMETER, the national Hellenic Agricultural Organization, a statutory body under the Ministry of Rural Development and Food. The Inter- Branch Organization of Greek Cotton (DOV) is collaborating with ELGO-DEMETER for the implementation of the AGRO-2 sustainability standards for cotton production.

AGRO-2 promotes integrated management of agricultural holdings to make make combined use of all available means to reduce inputs and achieve the best possible financial outcome for farmers. Farms and producer groups are enabled and encouraged to set goals and measure their progress towards better farming methods and practices.

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Sustainable Agriculture Experts and Better Cotton Partners to Convene for Virtual Event

Joe Morphet on December 17, 2020

 
Each year, BCI hosts an event for its field-level Implementing Partners who provide training on more sustainable practices to millions of cotton farmers worldwide.

The annual Implementing Partner Meeting enables BCI’s partners to come together to share best practices in sustainable farming, learn from one another, be inspired by innovations in the field and the market, collaborate and engage in valuable networking.

Across four days in January 2021, more than 100 of BCI’s partners from 18 countries will gather for the first virtual edition of the event. The theme this year is Climate Change Mitigation and Adaption, and sessions will focus on topics such as gender and climate, financing climate action, soil health, restoring degraded areas and commitments to action.

BCI partners will be joined by BCI staff and sustainability experts from Solidaridad, Helvetas, WWF, Forum for the Future, Rainforest Alliance, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), PAN-UK, Care International, the Foundation for Ecological Security, and the Sustainable Agriculture Network.

On the final day of the event, partners will reflect on Covid-19 adaptations and learnings from 2020 and explore how to best prepare for the future.

Highlights and key learnings from the 2021 meeting will be shared following the event. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected].

BCI’s 2021 Virtual Implementing Partner Meeting is officially sponsored by Interactio.

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Learn More About Better Cotton & Brazil in Our New Q&A

Joe Morphet on December 14, 2020

As one of the world’s largest producers, and consumers, of cotton fibre, Brazil is a key country for BCI to continue to improve the uptake and flow of Better Cotton across the supply chain. We have published this series of questions and answers below to provide clarity on a variety of aspects of BCI’s programme in Brazil.

ABRAPA (Associação Brasileira dos Produtores de Algodão – the Brazilian Association of Cotton Producers) is our Strategic Partner in Brazil, and Better Cotton from Brazil is licensed under ABRAPA’s ABR Protocol. This protocol is successfully benchmarked against the Better Cotton Standard System.

Benchmarking is a formal process for comparing, calibrating and conferring one-way recognition of other credible cotton sustainability standard systems. This recognition enables farmers who comply with a successfully benchmarked standard system to market Better Cotton.

The vast majority of cotton farms in Brazil are medium and large farms, and the benchmarked ABR Protocol currently applies only to these farms. The average size of cotton cultivation on ABR-BCI farms in the 2019/2020 season was 3,498 hectares.

However, BCI and ABRAPA acknowledge the need to work with cotton growing smallholders in Brazil. In 2019, planning began for trainings of smallholders in Minas Gerais as part of a BCI licensing pilot. These were scheduled for March 2020 but were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Once launched, ABRAPA is looking at replicating this pilot in the state of Bahia. ABRAPA’s state-based member associations already work with smallholders in the Catuti region of Minas Gerais, and the Guanambi region of Bahia.

It is not BCI’s role or responsibility to speak about issues related to soy or other crops in Brazil – our goal at BCI is to transform cotton production. However, we can speak about how the Better Cotton Standard System (BCSS) – and by extension ABR-BCI licensed farms – addresses sustainability issues in cotton farming that are often also cited in soy production, such as pesticide use, land use conversion and deforestation. See the questions and answers below for more details.

Yes. We recognise the value of social and environmental elements in a landscape and that these values must not be lost in the process of producing cotton. We also recognise that land use change comes with increased risks to biodiversity and other resources used by local people. That’s why we require BCI farmers to complete a High Conservation Value (HCV) assessment to identify, maintain and monitor those values early on so that they are not damaged by expanding cotton operations. This is part of our HCV approach that works to ensure farmers are respecting the rights of local communities, indigenous people and the environment.

This approach is outlined in Better Cotton Principles & Criteria 4.2.1 and 4.2.2 that all BCI farmers around the world, including ABR–BCI licensed farmers, must follow.

Beyond our criteria, ABR certification requires compliance with Brazilian environmental legislation. This means that, according to Brazilian law, even growers who only plant a small area of cotton must preserve 20-80% of the property. The percentage preserved depends on the biome in which the farm is located. For example, if a property is located in the Amazon biome, it must preserve 80% of its area. Brazil is made up of six biomes with different characteristics: Amazon, Caatinga, Cerrado (savanna), Atlantic Forest, Pampa and Pantanal.

All external audits of ABR-BCI farms consider the legislation of the biome in which the farm is located, and, most importantly, the licensing process is for the farm as a whole and not just for the area under cotton cultivation. Through the ABR audit and licensing process, all farms are visited annually. It should also be noted that no ABR-BCI licensed cotton farm is located in the legally-defined Amazon region.

In a tropical climate with intense pest pressure (boll weevil and white fly, in particular), a key challenge for Brazilian farmers is how to address the phase-out of harmful pesticides, as they work to reduce their overall pesticide use. Through our Strategic Partner, ABRAPA, we are helping cotton farmers in Brazil do this and find alternative methods for dealing with pests.

This starts with ABRAPA’s ABR Protocol which must uphold BCI’s current Better Cotton Principles and Criteria, including our increasingly stringent approach to the phase out of “Highly Hazardous Pesticides’, introduced in 2018 as part of a formal BCI Standard revision.

The Better Cotton Principle on Crop Protection requires that any pesticides listed under Stockholm and Rotterdam conventions and the Montreal protocol are not used. It also requires producers to phase out the use of any pesticide active ingredients and formulations that are known or presumed to be extremely or highly hazardous (acute toxicity) and carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic as per World Health Organization (WHO) and Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) classification. ABRAPA is currently updating its standard to align with these recent BCI requirements and supporting farmers as they seek viable alternatives for crop protection.

ABRAPA has set up five biological control factories, operated in collaboration with its state partners, to produce pest control products that are alternatives to more toxic offerings. The factories produce methods of pest control like natural enemies and entomopathogens (biological control with entomopathogens can be defined as the use of fungi, viruses and bacteria). One factory is located in Minas Gerais, one is in Goiás and three are in Mato Grosso, the largest cotton-producing state.

The development of the ABR standard was undertaken by ABRAPA without funding from BCI. Better Cotton Fast Track Programme (BCFTP) funding was used for a variety of activities, such as training materials, capacity building for ABRAPA and farmers on the Better Cotton Standard System (BCSS), worker training on decent work, and alignment of ABRAPA and BCI’s chain of custody system.

“Better Cotton’ means cotton that is better for the people who produce it, better for the environment it grows in and better for the sector’s future. BCI Farmers that produce “Better Cotton’ adhere to the seven principles defined in the BCI Principles & Criteria, including minimising the harmful impact of crop protection practices, enhancing biodiversity, using land responsibly, promoting decent work and promoting water stewardship. Sustainability is also a journey that doesn’t end when a farm is licensed – that’s why BCI Farmers commit to participating in a continuous cycle of learning and improvement.

BCI is committed to only making claims that are credible and able to be substantiated, which is why we describe Better Cotton as ‘more sustainable’ than conventionally grown cotton rather than stating that it is categorically “sustainable’. We are intentional and consistent across our communications about using “more sustainable’ in the place of “sustainable’ because this is more accurate and better captures the ethos of our approach.

Describing Brazil as “the largest producer of sustainable cotton’ is not in line with our position. We do say, however, that Brazil is the largest producer of Better Cotton because this is true, and we are proud of our partnership.

Learn more about Better Cotton in Brazil.

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