The makings of ‘low carbon’ cotton
Cotton gets a bad rap. It is accused of consuming undue amounts of water and chemicals from farm to mill. But it is fighting back. Better data is being collected to improve statistics and the adoption of regenerative practices is helping frame the natural fibre in a more positive light.
To be true, the entire fashion industry is accused of being unsustainable. But the extent of its impact is often based on incomplete or outdated data, and there is little solid research to set the record straight. This is not unsurprising given the size and fragmented nature of the market. Awareness however is growing that the numbers, copied from one industry report to another, are far from foolproof or even accurate. The challenge for cotton is that calculating the impacts of an agricultural resource is even more difficult than measuring those of an industrial process. Energy, water and chemical use in fields depend on weather conditions, vary widely from farm to farm and from year to year. Cotton has become ‘demonised’, says Andrew Olah, CEO of Olah Inc, founder of Kingpins and the Transformers Foundation. “We need to stop treating cotton like it comes from a factory. It doesn’t, cotton comes from farms, and each farm is different.” He says it is near impossible to evaluate the impacts of cotton farming on a global scale as conditions on a smallholder farm in India will be worlds apart from those on a huge agro-industrial estate in Brazil.
If that’s the case, then what is sustainable cotton? To this fundamental question, there is no simple answer. There is however growing momentum to promote better practices and no lack of organisations, institutions, industry frameworks and working groups to help the industry make progress.
The good news is that they are now increasingly working together to clear up the confusion in sustainable cotton practices and labels. Among these, the Textile Exchange, Delta Framework and US Cotton Trust Protocol are seeking to align the different standards and improve industry statistics. “The global cotton community has realised it needs better data and it is taking measures to achieve unity on information collected on farms,” says Brent Crossland, a global sustainability and regenerative cotton consultant and Textile Exchange ambassador. He cites Farm to Field, Myfarms, the Cool Farm Tool and Field Print Calculator as new platforms designed to help farmers log the various metrics to support their sustainable practices.
A common ground
The US cotton industry launched the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol in 2020 to improve the sector’s practices and monitor progress. It includes elements of regenerative agriculture, such as reducing soil loss and increasing soil carbon, measures that it says improve yields. The parameters tracked also cover land use, water management, greenhouse gas emissions and energy efficiency, and will provide a clearer picture of previously unavailable field data, it says.
Farmers participating in the programme are invited to report their data using the Field to Market platform. “Field to Market has created a data collecting tool that is as user-friendly as can be,” said U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol president Dr Gary Adams, speaking at a webinar on “Addressing gaps in sustainability: why brands need more data”. He emphasised the importance of better statistics. “The industry needs relevant and useful, standardised data, and it needs to be updated regularly,” he added. As self-reporting will be suspected of unreliability, independent verification will be conducted by Control Union on a selection of farms. This, he says, will provide a measure of accountability. The protocol is now included in the Textile Exchange’s list of ‘preferred fibres’.
The Delta Framework, which is a part of Cotton 2040, a multi-stakeholder programme created by sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future, is an ambitious plan to harmonise metrics and standards. It has identified 15 farm-level indicators across three main pillars — environmental, social and economic benefits — covering what it believes to be a foundation for better practices. This vast undertaking has reached out to 54 different organisations, from UN agencies to research institutions, and plans to present a finalised programme by mid-2021.
“Our goal is to make the cotton industry more sustainable and resilient so that sustainable cotton is no longer a niche, but the way things are done,” said Charlene Collison, associate director at Forum for the Future, in a presentation of the Delta Framework.
Textile Exchange is part of the Cotton 2040 Project, it has also formed the Sustainable Cotton Roundtable and manages the 2025 Sustainable Cotton Challenge. “These working groups and programmes all seek to harmonise standards and remove confusion,” says Mr Crossland. He does point out however that they put much of the burden on farmers. “The challenge is what do we need to know? The data that farmers need may not be the same information that consumers will find useful. We need better statistics that measure improvement, but we should not ask for more than we need.”
Regenerative vs extractive
Documentaries such as “The Biggest little farm” in 2018 and “Kiss the ground” in 2020 have helped bring the issue of regenerative agriculture to the mainstream. “The topic resonates strongly with consumers and these films help better understand what this type of farming is,” says Mr Crossland. He says regenerative practices have also gained a lot of play with farmers, as they can apply them in stages. “Regenerative makes sense from a farmer’s point of view as it covers many different aspects of farming and can improve yields and diversify crops, while improving soil health."This is a point that Dr Cristine Morgan, chief scientific officer for the Soil Health Institute, a non-profit, also raises. “Fields where regenerative agriculture techniques are applied look different, they can look messy, and this goes against socially accepted norms.” She recommends putting signs at roadsides to display soil health scores that will help explain why they look unkempt.
Carbon sequestration
A technique that has relied on a loosely defined set of practices to maintain soil health, and as such improve its resilience and potentially sequester more carbon, regenerative agriculture is also being formalised into a new standard. The Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA) has introduced a certification programme which adds a number of criteria to existing organic standards, including soil health, animal welfare and social fairness. These, says ROC director Elizabeth Whitlow, “are missing from organic farming”. It is designed as a “bolt-on” that organic certifiers can add to their audits. The cotton and denim industries are a key focus for the organisation and the first tests were conducted with Patagonia, a founding member of the programme, and Arvind and Pratibha in India.
e3 cotton, developed by BASF, has been promoting what it calls “carbon positive cotton farming” for years. A fully traceable system from seed to garment, it also measures CO2 levels at each stage of the supply chain. Committed to sustainable manufacturing, Vidalia Mills sources all of its cotton from e3 producers.
Major brands are making moves in the same direction. Levi Strauss has linked its sustainability goals to those of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol. Kontoor brand Wrangler is working with the Soil Health Institute and MyFarms to support farmers switching to regenerative practices. This is part of its goal to source 100% sustainably grown cotton by 2025. Lee, also a Kontoor brand, has taken similar measures.
How much impact these measures will have on cotton prices is open to question. For some, regenerative increases yields, diversity of crops, and can provide carbon credits that can be a new source of revenue for farmers. For others, the transition from conventional to regenerative, and then possibly to organic, will impact a farmer’s revenues, increase prices, and potentially add time-consuming data collection to a workday. Paying more for more sustainable raw materials is normal, says Andrew Olah: “It is unacceptable behaviour that a brand refuse to pay extra for more sustainable practices. It is a matter of doing the right thing not because it is sustainable, but because it is the right thing to do.” Regenerative farming, he says, is not a trend, it’s a good way of farming.
The Rodale Institute, a research institute on regenerative and organic farming, believes the technique has the ability to sequester all of the world’s annual carbon emissions. Scientists do however question the magnitude of impact it can have, all the more so in the absence of a globally recognised method of measuring carbon sequestration. It is expected that its application in cotton farming, coupled with the collection of better quality data, will provide a clearer picture of impacts and progress made. This might in turn help craft a more positive picture of denim’s favourite fibre.
Levi’s supports sustainable cotton farming and farmers as part of the Sustainable Cotton Challenge launched by Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales in 2017. Shown here, products from Levi’s Spring/Summer 21 Made & Crafted collection that features premium denim fabrics.
