It ain't fashion, if it ain't sustainable
texfash.com
 
  1. Home
  2. Archives
  3. Updates
  4. Textile Exchange Launches Guide to Tackle Integrity Issues in Organic Cotton Sector
Going Organic / Credibility Crisis

Textile Exchange Launches Guide to Tackle Integrity Issues in Organic Cotton Sector

Textile Exchange has called on brands and supply chain partners to proactively adopt an integrity system by reviewing and mapping their supply networks to check vulnerabilities and embed an anti-fraud and integrity policy.

By

5 November 2022

 4 minutes
Long Story, Cut Short
  • It has released a document titled Strengthening Integrity in Organic Cotton: Addressing the root causes of integrity issues in the organic cotton sector.
  • The purpose of the new report is to provide more guidance on ways the industry can act to improve integrity.
Textile Exchange's aim throughout the paper is to move the focus from problems to solutions. Primarily, this is by encouraging investment in positive actions and incentives that reduce the risk of fraud as discussed in the 2018 report.
Beyond 2018 Textile Exchange's aim throughout the paper is to move the focus from problems to solutions. Primarily, this is by encouraging investment in positive actions and incentives that reduce the risk of fraud as discussed in the 2018 report. Karl Wiggers / Unsplash

Textile Exchange has announced measures to stem the rot ushered in by the organic cotton credibility crisis.

  • It has released a document titled Strengthening Integrity in Organic Cotton: Addressing the root causes of integrity issues in the organic cotton sector.
  • The new document follows the earlier 2018 members-only report that sought to highlight some of the risks and opportunities that exist throughout the organic cotton supply network, help build integrity and combat fraud.
  • The purpose of the new report is to provide more guidance on ways the industry can act to improve integrity.

The Key Messages: The report offers five takeaways:

  1. Integrity is critically important to the organic cotton supply chain, but upholding it is difficult, and threats to integrity often evolve. Failing to address integrity as a major sector challenge risks damaging trust in organic cotton.
  2. Fraud occurs most often where financial pressure, opportunity, and the potential for rationalisation meet. This can be a result of underinvestment, the presence of loopholes, and the perception among supply chain partners that their efforts or the risks they’re taking are not being rewarded fairly.
  3. One way to prevent fraud is by putting restrictions in place and reviewing them frequently. But it is essential to get to the root cause of the problem, not just manage the symptoms. This means helping others through education, to recognise it, address it, and remediate the challenges that cause it to happen in the first place.
  4. To fight fraud effectively and build a robust system of integrity, organisations need to go beyond building compliance through standards and certification towards achieving traceability for organic content, improving incentives for supply chain partners, and collaborating with others.
  5. Organisations can start now by reviewing and mapping their supply networks to see where there are vulnerabilities to fraud, and then introduce and embed an anti-fraud and integrity policy. This should be part of adopting an approach of continuous learning and improvement.

Textile exchange is recommending that brands and supply chain partners proactively adopt an integrity system that tackles fraud by:

  • Building compliance through standards and certification.
  • Achieving traceability for organic content.
  • Improving incentives for supply chain partners.
  • Reviewing, improving, and collaborating with others.
TAGS
Sector:
Subject:
Young India Fashion Survey 2025
Although the focus of the report is on the actions that companies can take, Textile Exchange is advocating for collective action among all stakeholders to support the protection of integrity in organic cotton.
Collective Cotton Although the focus of the report is on the actions that companies can take, Textile Exchange is advocating for collective action among all stakeholders to support the protection of integrity in organic cotton. Amber Martin / Unsplash

The Recommendations

Adopt an integrity system

  • Start by reviewing and mapping your supply networks to see where there are vulnerabilities where fraud could occur.
  • Introduce and embed an anti-fraud and integrity policy.
  • Monitor the success of your anti-fraud strategy regularly, and see and how well controls and processes are designed and operating.
  • Seek to incorporate learning into standard operating ractices and continuously seek to learn and improve.

Compliance

  • Across your supply network, introduce appropriate standards, certification, and testing, particularly concerning GMOs, to provide greater transparency and surety over production claims.
  • Brands should also aim for a fully certified supply chain, rather than a partially certified supply chain.

Transparency and traceability

  • Brands should have a sourcing and procurement policy that incentivises transparency.
  • Invest in greater traceability by signing up to a transparency and traceability system (such as Textile Exchange’s Trackit)
  • Ask your supply network and certifying bodies to use your traceability system for transaction and scope certificates.
  • Brands should adopt the forensic authentication of material as part of their strategy.
  • Investigate concerns around transparency and traceability to ensure risks are mitigated or minimised.
  • Discuss solutions and share learnings with your supply network so others can benefit from your investment.

Incentives and fair premiums

  • Combine efforts within sector-wide initiatives like the Organic Cotton Round Table (OCRT) – aligning around a one-sector vision and agenda that incentivises actions that promote integrity. Seek to form a global consensus on ways to improve integrity by investing jointly in collaborative approaches that improve the sector.
  • Invest in new models and at all levels of the supply network to ensure your sustainability efforts deliver sufficient premiums for living wages and fair profits.
  • Invest in a new textile economy, based on transparent, traceable, and accountable principles that lead to better economic, environmental, and societal outcomes.
  • Adopt management reporting tools such as Environmental Profit & Loss statements to show the real value of integrity and sustainability and help achieve internal buy-in for integrity efforts.

Review, improve, and collaborate

  • Communicate to your stakeholders and supply network what you are doing to build integrity and implement an anti-fraud strategy. By talking about initiatives, you change the perceptions of those involved with your supply networks concerning the opportunity to get away with fraud. By doing so, you can break the Cressey Fraud Triangle and reduce the risk that fraud will occur.
  • Increase dialogue with others to continue to identify and address issues.
  • Work with others to make more data publicly available, including the national farm-level standards.
  • Increase transparency around price premiums and seek accountability for industry players to pay fair premiums, right along the supply chain.
 
 
  • Dated posted: 5 November 2022
  • Last modified: 5 November 2022
 
ITF Intertex Portugal 2025
LATEST SPECIALS
Textile Recycling Expo
LATEST UPDATES
Young India Fashion Survey 2025
MOST READ