Europe's Better Cotton launches Delta Framework

07 Oct '22

2 min read

Pic: Shutterstock

Better Cotton has launched the Delta Framework, a common set of environmental, social, and economic indicators to measure sustainability across the cotton and coffee commodity sectors. The Delta Framework was made possible by a grant from the ISEAL Innovations Fund, which is supported by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO).

The project collaborators include major sustainability standard organisations from the cotton and coffee sectors. The founding organisations are Better Cotton, the Global Coffee Platform (GCP), the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) and the International Coffee Association (ICO).

The Delta Framework was developed through a cross-sector collaboration over the past 3 years, focused on producing a consolidated and consistent way to measure and report the progress of farms participating in sustainable commodity certification schemes or other sustainable agriculture initiatives, Better Cotton said in a press release.

The Framework is also accompanied by examples of best practices, methodologies and tools to encourage stakeholders to adopt and use the framework, alongside recommendations on how private or public entities can effectively utilise the framework and communicate sustainability information to their stakeholders.

The cross-sector programme achieved consensus on key sustainability indicators and guidance materials that were extensively tested by the Project participants and other stakeholders. As a result, eight sustainable cotton standards, programmes and codes (members of the Cotton 2040 Working Group on Impact Metrics alignment) signed a Memorandum of Understanding in which they commit to align on Impacts Measurement and Reporting. Each member has committed to identifying an individual timeline for integrating relevant Delta indicators into their own monitoring, evaluation and reporting systems over time. The framework also provides an opportunity to develop cross-sector services to respond to farmers’ concerns and challenges, while making it easier to report progress.

“Better Cotton is proud to have initiated and coordinated this cross-sector collaboration, which brings together expertise from across the agricultural sector. The Delta Framework is making it easier for the private sector, governments and farmers to report effectively on sustainability progress, leading to improvements in the quality of support and services provided to farmers, including better financing and government policies,” Better Cotton CEO, Alan McClay said.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RR)

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