In an apparent bid to plug the holes in the recently released report on cotton sustainability, titled “Mind the Gap: Towards a More Sustainable Cotton Market”, Cotton Incorporated responded by refuting its claims and providing some facts that opposes some of the points highlighted in the report.
Cotton Inc further sought clarifications on some the points featured in the 10-page report, which was published by Pesticides Action Network UK, Solidaridad and WWF on April 4, carried by a number of sustainability and textile trade press.
Cotton Incorporated President and CEO Berrye Worsham said, “…document that pits cotton programmes against each other, at the expense of the entire industry. The paper positions certification programmes not as one path to responsible cotton production, but the only path. This philosophy favours paperwork over real, measurable and verified progress, including that made by conventional cotton growers in many countries. By identifying those facts that support a pro-certification agenda, the report obscures the fact that cotton is the only commodity fibre offering the supply chain multiple methods and programmes to assure responsible production and traceability.”
Highlighting the Cotton LEADS programme (not mentioned in the report), he further added, “Not every country has the luxury of a robust and long-standing infrastructure of national regulation, self-investment in improvement, or the ability to enact these practices on a national level. These commonalities are what led cotton organizations from the US and Australia to form Cotton LEADS. For countries without this level of infrastructure and achievement, the education offered by certification programmes is a valid and welcome means of encouraging responsible production and traceability. But it is not the only path to environmental gains for cotton.
“Every cotton identity programme should stand on its own merits and present a complete and absolutely honest case for itself. Incendiary statements and obfuscation may increase membership numbers in the short term, but in the long term are a disservice to cotton businesses in search of a sustainable path, and to the ideal of sustainability,” Worsham went on to say.
Emphasising on cotton’s biggest threat, synthetics, he stated: “The real threat to cotton continues to be synthetics. If the energy expended on vilifying conventional cotton were focused on combating loss of cotton share, there would be more than enough room for all cotton identity programmes to flourish.”
