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Sustainable Farming Solutions Shortlisted for Global Better Cotton Innovation Challenge

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Sustainable Farming Solutions Shortlisted for Global Better Cotton Innovation Challenge

Joe Morphet on April 17, 2020

 
In November 2019, the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) and IDH The Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), with the support of Dalberg Advisors, launched the Better Cotton Innovation Challenge – a global project seeking innovative ideas and solutions to improve sustainable cotton farming practices around the world.

The Challenge was divided into two categories:

Challenge One: Customised Training
Challenge one sought innovations to help bring customised training on more sustainable farming practices to hundreds of thousands of cotton farmers across the globe.

Challenge Two: Data Collection
Challenge two sought solutions that could reduce the time and cost of farmer data collection to enable more efficient BCI licensing processes.

A total of 87 applications were submitted before the January 2020 deadline – 36 applications for the customised training challenge, and 51 applications for the data collection challenge.

”We are delighted that the Challenge received such a high level of interest from organisations all over the world. Thank you to those who took the time to submit thoughtful, creative and practical solutions.” – Cristina Martin, Programme Manager, BCI.

All 87 applications were reviewed by the Innovation Challenge Team, and the top 20 solutions were shortlisted to progress through to the next stage of the challenge. The 20 shortlisted applicants – from India, Pakistan, Greece, Israel, Kenya, Australia and the US – received mentorship from cotton sector experts and BCI as they prepared high-quality, detailed proposals for their solutions, including plans to test their innovations at field level.

A jury composed of external experts, alongside BCI, IDH and Dalberg, then assessed the detailed applications and selected five final candidates to progress to the next phase of on-the-ground trials.

When shortlisting the solutions, the jury considered:

  • Impact: Is the solution effective?
  • Adaptive: Is it adaptive and flexible?
  • Scalable: Is it scalable and replicable?
  • Viability: Is it financially viable and sustainable?
  • Capability: Is the team capable of implementing the solution?
  • Pragmatic: Is the on-the-ground test being proposed practical?
  • X-Factor: Is it novel and new to the BCI programme?

In the next stage of the competition, the five applicants will have the opportunity to pilot their sustainability-focused solutions in the field with BCI Farmers.

”In light of the spread of Covid-19 and global travel restrictions, the field-testing element of the Challenge has been postponed until July 2020 in order to safeguard the health and wellbeing of everyone involved in the Better Cotton Innovation Challenge. We look forward to continuing this exciting competition with our finalist innovators, and sharing their solutions, later in the year.” – Cristina Martin, Programme Manager.

Find out more about the challenge here.

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Better Cotton General Assembly to Take Place Virtually on 9 June 2020

Joe Morphet on April 14, 2020

 
The BCI General Assembly is the biennial gathering of BCI Members across all BCI membership categories, to elect the BCI Council (the governing body of the organisation) and receive key updates from the BCI Leadership Team.

While the 2020 Global Cotton Sustainability Conference in Lisbon has been postponed to 2-4 March 2021 in response to the current situation regarding the Coronavirus COVID-19 and its global impact on health and travel, the continuity of the BCI governance must proceed as planned.

The virtual BCI General Assembly meeting will take place on Tuesday 9 June. The meeting will take place twice, to enable members across multiple time zones to participate.

Meeting 1 – For Asia, Africa and Europe: 08:00 CET

Meeting 2 – For Americas and Europe: 16:00 CET

Online registration details will be shared with BCI Members shortly.

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Better Cotton Sets Up Expert Task Force on Forced Labour and Decent Work

Joe Morphet on April 1, 2020

The Better Cotton Standard System is a holistic approach to sustainable cotton production which covers all three pillars of sustainability: social, environmental and economic, and addresses the many challenges of cotton production. One of the seven Better Cotton Principles and Criteria directly addresses Decent Work and forced labour specifically. Decent Work is defined as work which offers fair pay, security and equal opportunities for learning and progression, in an environment where people feel safe, respected, and able to express their concerns or negotiate better conditions.

In order to adapt and respond to Decent Work challenges in cotton farming, wherever such challenges may arise, BCI is actively engaged in dialogue on Decent Work and forced labour issues with our stakeholders, including civil society organisations, retailers and brands, and expert organisations.

Task Force on Forced Labour and Decent Work

BCI is currently working to strengthen Better Cotton Principle Six: Decent Work and has set up an expert Task Force on Forced Labour and Decent Work to review selected elements of the Better Cotton Standard System. Based on this review, the Task Force will produce recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the system in identifying, preventing, mitigating and remediating forced labour risks.

Task Force Members

The Task Force on Forced Labour and Decent Work brings together representatives from civil society, retailers, brands and consultancies with a strong expertise in human rights and forced labour issues in supply chains, particularly in the textile sector. The Task Force also draws on the expertise of a project adviser with a background in tackling the risks of child and forced labour in cotton harvests at the International Labour Organization.

Civil Society

  • Patricia Jurewicz, Founder and Vice President | Responsible Sourcing Network
  • Shelly Han, Chief of Staff & Director or Engagement | Fair Labour Association
  • Allison Gill, Cotton Campaign Coordinator | International Labor Rights Forum
  • Isabelle Rogers, Global Cotton Programme Manager | Solidaridad
  • Chloe Cranston, Business and Human Rights Manager | Anti-Slavery International
  • Komala Ramachandra, Senior Researcher | Human Rights Watch

Consultancies / Research Organisations

  • Rosey Hurst, Founder and Director | Impactt
  • Aarti Kapoor, Managing Director | Embode
  • Brett Dodge, Senior Consultant | Ergon

Retailers and Brands

  • Fiona Sadler, Head of Ethical Trade (will temporarily represent M&S) | Lydia Hopton, Ethical Trade Manager | M&S Clothing and Home
  • Aditi Wanchoo, Senior Manager – Development Partnerships Social & Environmental Affairs | adidas
  • Jason Tucker, Director of Labor Performance, Sustainable Manufacturing & Sourcing | Nike

Project Advisors

  • Stephen McClelland, Independent Senior Consultant

Find out more about the Task Force members here.

We will share updates on the progress of the Task Force as more information is available.

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Global Cotton Sustainability Conference Moves to March 2021

Joe Morphet on March 24, 2020

 
The 2020 Global Cotton Sustainability Conferencehas been postponed until 2 – 4 March* 2021.

The decision to postpone this year’s conference was not taken lightly, butthe BCI Leadership Team agreed that postponement is the most responsible approach given the current situation regarding Coronavirus COVID-19 and its global impact on health and travel. BCI’s priority is to safeguard the health and wellbeing of all BCI staff, members, partners and stakeholders.

“The spread of coronavirus will have an ongoing impact all over the world, and affect the entire BCI community, including members, staff, partners and other stakeholders. The situation now requires a significant step-up in the BCI management response. We need to face an unprecedented crisis with unprecedented solutions. It is inspiring to see how quickly, and with a deep sense of engagement, our stakeholders, partners and team members have stepped up to the plate and embraced new ways of working and living in order to continue delivering on their commitments. With this level of engagement, we feel confident about the sustainable cotton community’s ability to meet the challenges of this period of crisis and uncertainty and emerge stronger.” –Alan McClay, CEO, BCI.

The conference in 2021 will deliver the same programme, designed to address sustainability issues across the entire cotton supply chain. Join us next year to hear from inspiring speakers from farm to fashion, and network with leaders and experts from across the cotton sustainability sector.

Some of the exciting conference sessions already lined up include:

Keynotes

  • The Value of Cotton in the Circular Economy
  • Money, Magic, Measurement & Sustainable Agriculture
  • Making Purpose Real

Plenary Panel Discussions

  • Experiences from the Field: Smallholder Farmers
  • Getting Aligned on Impact
  • Reaching Our 2020 Goals

Breakout sessions

  • Farm Adaptation to Climate Change
  • Can Cotton be Carbon Neutral?
  • Embedding Climate Action: Internal Engagement and Communications
  • Innovation Showcase
  • The Cotton 2025 Challenge
  • Impact for People: The Case Studies
  • Community Partnerships
  • Women in Agriculture and Beyond

The goal of the 4th Global Cotton Sustainability Conference is to bring the entire sector together in shaping a more sustainable future for cotton.

The full conference agenda, list of registered attendees and more is available now in the free conference mobile app. Find out more and download the app today.

We hope you can join us in Lisbon on 2 – 4 March 2021*.

*BCI intends to postpone the conference to 2 – 4 March 2021, with final arrangements currently under review. We are providing advance notice, so you can make arrangements for attending now. Pending venue confirmation, logistics may be subject to change.

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Highlights: 2020 Better Cotton Implementing Partner Meeting & Symposium

Joe Morphet on February 26, 2020

 
In January 2020, the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) convened more than 45 of its field-level partner organisations – Implementing Partners – from 12 countries, for the fourth edition of the BCI Implementing Partner Meeting & Symposium. The annual meeting provides BCI’s Implementing Partners with an opportunity to come together to share knowledge, best practice and innovations across teams, organisation, regions and countries.

We’ve picked out some event highlights in this short video!

The three-day event focused primarily on biodiversity and the practices and innovations being implemented on the ground. BCI’s Implementing Partners had the opportunity to share their successes and challenges, while biodiversity experts took to the stage to share their insights. Guest speakers included Olivia Scholtz, High Conservation Value (HCV) Resource Network; Gwendolyn Ellen, independent consultant; Nan Zeng, The Nature Conservancy; Liron Israely, Tel-Aviv University; and Vamshi Krishna, WWF India.

Sharing practical solutions was a key element of the event and each partner organisation had the opportunity to showcase the methods and tools they are most proud of. This created a great opportunity for hands-on learning, and attendees explored a rich variety of biodiversity practices from different BCI Programme countries.

To further recognise the great work of BCI’s field-level partners, 10 Producer Unit Managers* were shortlisted and awarded for their outstanding efforts in the field. Meet the winners.

The event concluded with each attendee committing to actions to protect, enhance and restore biodiversity in 2020 based on the challenges and solutions identified and tested in the previous cotton sessions.

*Each BCI Implementing Partner supports a series ofProducer Units, which is a group of BCI Farmers (from smallholder ormedium sizedfarms) from the same community or region. Each Producer Unit is overseen by a Producer Unit Manager and has a team of Field Facilitators; who work directly with farmers to raise awareness and adoption of more sustainable practices, in line with the Better Cotton Principles and Criteria.
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Better Cotton Publishes Key Assurance Programme Revisions for the 2020-21 Cotton Season

Joe Morphet on February 25, 2020

 
In 2018, BCI launched a project to revise the Better Cotton Assurance Programme – a key component of the Better Cotton Standard System that involves regular farm assessments to ensure that the Better Cotton Principles and Criteria are adhered to. The Assurance Programme is based on a series of complementary mechanisms: self-assessments, 2ndparty checks, and 3rdparty verification, and is the central mechanism for assessing whether farmers can be licensed to sell Better Cotton.

The revision was undertaken in line with BCI’s approach to continuous improvement. The revisions incorporate learnings to strengthen and ensure the continued effectiveness and integrity of BCI’s model. Following the two-year process, the revised Assurance Programme is now effective for the 2020-21 season.

Key Assurance Programme Changes

  • Most new Producer Units* of smallholders or medium farms will now spend their first season focusing on farmer outreach and training, before being assessed for licensing in their second season. This “set-up phase’ will give new Producer Units more time to train and recruit field staff, engage with farmers and develop effective management systems. This will improve the quality of farmer training and management systems, and over time should lead to greater field-level impacts. It will also strengthen credibility by giving Producer Units more time to ensure they fully meet all required Core Indicators of the Better Cotton Principles and Criteria before being licensed.
  • All Producer Units will now require a BCI or third-party verifier assessment (to confirm they comply with all Core Indicators of the Principles and Criteria) before a group of farmers can receive a licence to sell Better Cotton. Therefore, Producer Units will no longer be able to receive a licence based on a self-assessment or Implementing Partner checks only.
  • BCI Implementing Partners will be expected to focus less effort on compliance, and instead deliver more meaningful support to farmers. Partners will be expected to assess all new Producer Units for readiness before licensing, and to carry out support visits on existing Producer Units to address any gaps in field staff competence, management systems, farmer awareness and practice adoption.
  • All licenses to sell Better Cotton will be issued farmers for a standard three-year period, rather than variable license durations based on self-reporting against improvement indicators (indicators designed to incentivise and measure continuous improvement across all areas of sustainable production).
  • Tracking progress against continuous improvement objectives has now been embedded into multiple assurance mechanisms, including self-assessment, licensing assessments, and Producer Unit support visits carried out by the Implementing Partner.

Together, these revisions will help strengthen BCI’s assurance model while reinforcing the focus on farmer capacity building and field-level improvements.

For more information, you can find a short summary of changes and the updated documents on the assurance page of the BCI website.

*Each BCI Implementing Partner supports a series ofProducer Units, which is a group of BCI Farmers (from smallholder ormedium sizedfarms) from the same community or region. Each Producer Unit is overseen by a Producer Unit Manager and has a team of Field Facilitators; who work directly with farmers to raise awareness and adoption of more sustainable practices, in line with the Better Cotton Principles and Criteria.

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2020 Sustainable Cotton Ranking Launched

Joe Morphet on February 17, 2020

 
For the fourth time, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Solidaridad and the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) UK have published the Sustainable Cotton Ranking. The ranking analysed the 77 largest cotton users among international apparel brands and retailers, reviewing their policies, actual uptake of more sustainable cotton and transparency in their supply chains.

Access the 2020 Sustainable Cotton Ranking.

Adidas scored the highest in the 2020 Sustainable Cotton Ranking, followed by IKEA, H&M Group, C&A, Otto Group, Marks and Spencer Group, Levi Strauss & Co., Tchibo, Nike Inc., Decathlon Group and Bestseller, who all fell into the “leading the way’ category. Nine of these companies are BCI Retailer and Brand Members and also sit at the top of the Better Cotton Leaderboard, based on volumes of cotton sourced as Better Cotton.

The 2020 Sustainable Cotton Ranking illustrated that 11 companies are “leading the way’ when it comes to their sustainable cotton sourcing efforts, followed by 13 more companies that are “well on their way’ and 15 others which are “starting the journey’. According to the report, the remaining 38 companies have not yet started the journey.

Overall, the report found that progress has been made across the board on policy, uptake and traceability. Increasing numbers of companies are sourcing more sustainable cotton including Organic, Fairtrade, CmiA and Better Cotton, and overall uptake of more sustainable cotton has increased.

However, there is still a long way to go. With this ranking, PAN UK, Solidaridad and WWF hope to accelerate demand and uptake of more sustainable cotton by clothing and home-textile retailing companies around the world.

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Global Cotton Sustainability Conference | Meet the Speaker: Reuben Turner

Well Studio on February 13, 2020

As of 20 March 2020, the Global Cotton Sustainability Conference in Lisbon moved from 9-11 June 2020, to be hosted on 2-4 March 2021. The decision to postpone was in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and its global impact on health and travel.

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In just a few months’ time, the 4th annual Global Cotton Sustainability Conference will take place in Lisbon. Farmers, brands, manufacturers, suppliers, NGOs, civil society organisations, agricultural experts and researchers will meet to collaborate on a more sustainable future for cotton.

Ahead of the conference, we caught up with the keynote speakers to gather their insights on key industry challenges and the innovations they are particularly excited about right now.

Meet Reuben Turner, Creative Partner and Founder, GOOD Agency

Reuben Turner has a long and distinguished background in marketing and advertising for social purpose. He is co-founder of London-based creative agency GOOD, one of the first agencies founded with social, ethical and environmental principles at its core.

As well as having worked with a number of leading NGOs, Reuben focuses on helping commercial brands understand, define and grow through social purpose, with current clients including Pernod Ricard, the Kingfisher group and leading fashion brand ESCADA.

How have approaches to defining and communicating an organisation’s purpose changed over time?

For a long time, an organisation’s “purpose’ was primarily about statements, manifestos or mood films. Although business leaders understood the need to have an organising principle that would make an emotional connection with stakeholders, staff and customers, they saw it primarily as a brand or positioning project. That led us to the era of “purposewash’, where brands would make emotive claims to stand for things or awkwardly link themselves to social issues.

How damaging is “purposewash’?

In an era of accelerate climate change, social division and structural inequality, such claims are rightly being seen as superficial, and it’s arguably added to the cynicism and distrust that so many people feel towards business. Simply put, we don’t have time for “purposewash’ anymore. It’s not solving the corporate world’s trust issue.

How can organisations get it right?

Today, there’s a new breed of business leaders who understand that statements are the start, not the end of the purpose journey. What actually matters is what businesses DO: the actions they take, the policies they change, the product innovations they invest in and the ways in which they help customers live healthier, more sustainable and equitable lives. These are all things that people care far more about than adverts.

Are there any innovative approaches to communicating purpose which you are particularly excited about right now?

I’ve been talking for a couple of years about the dynamic of “ally brands’ – these are brands that reject traditional leadership principles and think deeply how they can authentically be an ally to groups that need them. That could be working mothers struggling to make themselves heard at work or marginalised communities around the world. Ally brands grow their power and influence by seeing and sharing it. That’s counterintuitive to most brand thinkers but it’s a fundamentally important role in an unequal world.

You can hear Reuben Turner speak at the Global Cotton Sustainability Conference, which has been moved to 2-4 March 2021 in light of the global Covid-19 pandemic.

Find out more and register here.

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