Nonprofit Better Cotton has strategically transitioned to become a certification scheme, underscoring its commitment to maintain highest standards of sustainability and transparency in the cotton industry.
- By outsourcing all farm-level certification decisions to independent third parties, the world’s leading sustainability initiative for cotton provides additional rigour to its already robust model, further boosting impartiality and independence.
- Alongside third-party audits, it will continue second-party monitoring of its global network of farmer-focused organisations. This dual approach will help identify areas of non-conformity, ensure ongoing visibility of its operating environment and inform capacity-strengthening efforts to drive continuous improvement.
- In addition, all supplier and manufacturer members wishing to source Physical Better Cotton will be in scope for certification against the Better Cotton Chain of Custody Standard. This will improve supply chain traceability and boost demand for sustainably produced cotton while aligning with evolving regulatory expectations.
- Later this year, retailers and brands that wish to use Physical Better Cotton will also be eligible to use a new product label that speaks to their commitment to Better Cotton’s mission.
ABOUT: The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), or just Better Cotton for short, is the largest cotton sustainability programme in the world, partnering with farmers, ginners, spinners, suppliers, manufacturers, brand owners, retailers, civil society organisations, donors and governments. This adds up to more than 2,700 members in the Better Cotton network.
- Working with close to 70 different field-level partners, it continues to reach more and more of the world’s cotton-farming communities.
- Nearly all of them—farmers and farm workers—work on smallholdings less than 20 hectares in size. Helping them to enjoy better yields, improved working conditions and greater financial security has been transformative.
- 2.13 million farmers in 22 countries now have a licence to sell their cotton as Better Cotton. In total, its programmes have reached almost 4 million people whose working lives are connected to cotton production.
WHAT THEY SAID:
For more than a decade, Better Cotton has led one of the sector’s most robust and credible voluntary standard systems. The transition to a certification scheme and standardising third-party verification will not only strengthen our current approach, but also enable us to continue driving meaningful industry-wide change.
— Tom Owen
Head of Certification
Better Cotton
