Better Cotton Initiative

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The Better Cotton Initiative ( BCI , dt. About the initiative for better cotton ) is aiming the sustainable production of a program cotton to promote. It was founded in 2005 by a number of non-governmental organizations and companies. Behind it is the organization of the same name based in Geneva . It is a member of the ISEAL Alliance . In contrast to labels such as Fair Trade , UTZ Certified or Bio-Siegel , BCI does not certify end products, but aims to make global cotton production more sustainable overall by training cotton farmers in sustainable management on the one hand and pressure on the members of the cotton-recycling initiative at the same time Supply chain is exercised to process cotton from sustainable sources.

Members

Founding members from the industry are adidas , Gap Inc. (since retired), H&M and IKEA as well as the non-governmental organizations ICCO , IFAP , IFC , Organic Exchange , Oxfam , PAN UK and WWF . Since then, various producers, trading houses and processors have joined the initiative alongside other companies and NGOs.

Working method

The Better Cotton Initiative works on six levels:

Definition of production standards for "Better Cotton"
Support of cotton farmers in the implementation
Regular inspection and evaluation of farms
Building supply chains for "Better Cotton"
Monitoring, evaluation and further development
Providing forums for sharing knowledge and best practices

Sustainability standards

The sustainability standards focus on the areas of pesticide use, water consumption, soil protection, product quality and social issues. Similar to UTZ Certified , the certification of products as "Better Cotton" does not require that all criteria have been met, but rather only continuous improvement in addition to ensuring certain minimum standards. There are no minimum purchase prices as with fair trade .

Effects

According to the initiative, 90,000 growers produced "Better Cotton" in Brazil, Pakistan, India and Mali in the 2011–2012 season. According to preliminary findings of the initiative, the certified farmers in India used an average of 20% less water per hectare and 40% less pesticides in the 2011–2012 season, while harvesting was 20% higher and profitability 50% higher than that of comparable farmers.

Unethical behavior and greenwashing

According to the French documentary "Coton: l'envers de nos tee-shirts" of the magazine series "Cash Investigation" of the TV channel France 2 from 2017 (German title: "Dirty Cotton - Slaves of the Textile Industry", 2019), BCI is effectively just one Greenwashing label that could lead to less purely organic cotton being grown. Farmers who previously used purely organic cotton without additives and pesticides and v. a. growing without genetically modified seeds, thanks to the BCI allocation guidelines, they can now use the full range of pesticides and GMOs. Likewise, no consideration is given to the origin, i.e. harvest, and processing. Effectively, child labor and forced labor are accepted, while the BCI-certified products are sold as “green”, i.e. “clean” cotton.