Cotton

Becoming more sustainable is for big fashion brands and retailers a burning issue.

No agricucture commodity is as poluting as cotton. About 10% of all agricultural chemicals worldwide is used for the growth of cotton. Resulting in negative impact on both the environment as on farmers (and their families) that use the chemicals. Next to that cotton has a heavy toll on water supply in Uzbekistan, Pakistan, China en India. Child labour, low prices and expensive agrochemicals result in heavy depts for cotton farmers.

Around 50% of all cotton is grown in developping countries and involves around 50 million small holders. Common issues are high costs, low incomes because of low market prices.

Due to these problems the market for biological and fair trade cotton as rapidly grown in the last couple of years and mainstream international fashion brands and retailers buy it. Nevertheless the forsight is that the market voor EKO and fair trade cotton will stay relativly small.

There is a need for initiatives that will help change the way conventional cotton is produced into a more sustainable way of producing . 

The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) is a multistakeholder initiative that involve big multinational companies. Very promising are the activities of front runners of the BCI such as IKEA that show that going 100% sustainable can be cost efficient . IKEA has publicly announced it will go for 100% sustainable cotton in 2015. Hopefully other brands will follow the example of IKEA.

IDH development program
The Cotton Development Program of IDH builds coalitions of major brands and retailers to work together on sustainable mainstream production of cotton. Through creating market demand in the North, development programs are organised in the South, with training and support of cotton farmers that want to grow sustainable cotton.

The expectation is that when 1 million tons of sustainable cotton is on the market, the market for cotton will transform into a new sustainable balance between demand and supply.   
 

The IDH development program cooperates with Solidaridad, ICCO, IKEA and fashion brands like LEVI's, M&S, H&M and others to create mainstream sustainable cotton production. Targets are:

• Decrease the use of peticides
• Better protection of employees
• Responsible watermanagement.

Ambitions:

2012:

• 2-3 pilots led by markt consortia: 100.000 tons sustainable cotton in the market

tot 2015:

• 300.000 ton sustainable cotton in ther chain
• Tested and operational model for a susstainable cotton chain resulting in procurement strategies, transparancy and increased livelyhood for  cotton farmers
• Sopprt programs for smallholders in India, China, Pakistan, Central Asia and Africa including capacity building and access to finance