13 firms pledge to use 100% sustainable cotton by 2025

02 Jun '17

2 min read

Thirteen of the world’s most renowned clothing and textile companies signed up to a sustainable cotton communiqué, through which they have pledged to use 100 per cent sustainable cotton by 2025. The pledge was the result of a meeting organised by The Prince’s International Sustainability Unit (ISU) with Marks & Spencer and The Soil Association.

The thirteen companies that have signed the sustainable cotton communiqué are: ASOS, Eileen Fisher, Greenfibres, H&M, IKEA, Kering, Levi Strauss & Co., Lindex, M&S, Nike, Sainsbury’s, F&F at Tesco and Woolworths Holdings. Together these companies use more than 300,000 tonnes of cotton annually.

The communiqué defines sustainable sources as Organic, Fairtrade, Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), Cotton Made in Africa and recycled cotton certified to an independently verifiable standard such as the Global Recycled Standard (GRS) or the Recycled Claim Standard (RCS). In addition, Cotton Connect’s REEL programme and code provides a starting point for businesses aiming to for greater sustainability in their cotton supply chain.

Over the past years, ISU has been working in collaboration with Marks and Spencer and The Soil Association to convene leading companies and various ‘standards’ organisations to discuss how to reduce the negative environmental and social impacts that are all too often associated with cotton production. There have been substantial gains made over the past few years in scaling the production of more sustainable forms of cotton, with production higher than ever before. However, companies are only actively sourcing less than a fifth of more sustainable material. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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