Better Cotton

🌍 On 7-8 October, we celebrated World Cotton Day with an exciting Better Cotton Field Trip in Türkiye, generously sponsored by SÖKTAŞ TEKSTİL and Cengiz Akgün Tarım, and hosted by our dedicated partner, Agrita. The event offered a unique opportunity to explore regenerative cotton practices, ginning, manufacturing processes, and traceability systems—critical steps towards a more sustainable cotton industry. We were privileged to have Prof. Dr. Erdem Aykas and Prof. Dr. Gönül Aydın lead discussions on Regenerative Agriculture, providing invaluable expertise that made the experience both educational and inspiring. A big thank you to all the Better Cotton Members, cotton farmers, ITKIB, the Ministry of Trade, and our partners IPUD and Agrita for joining us. Special thanks to our sponsors and everyone involved for making this celebration of sustainable cotton a success! 🌱 #WorldCottonDay #Sustainability #RegenerativeAgriculture #BetterCotton #CottonFarming #Traceability #SustainableFarming Photo Credit: Better Cotton / Baran Vardar 

Better Cotton has launched an ambitious research project in India aimed at defining best practices to empower women and boost their representation at the farm level in the cotton sector. 👏🍃 Women play a vital role in India's cotton farming regions, but they continuously face cultural and societal barriers, including limited access to education, restrictions on independent travel and unpaid domestic and care work that disproportionately falls on them.💚 The project – funded by ISEAL – will not only identify real-success stories that can serve as inspiration for targeted interventions, but it will also generate learnings that will benefit cotton farming countries around the world. 👏🌎 Jyoti Narain Kapoor ( She/Her), Director of Better Cotton’s India Programme, said, “Women form the foundation of cotton farming communities across India, but too often are their contributions unrecognised and unrewarded. This research project will help underpin our women’s empowerment efforts in the country by studying what does and what does not work.”🙌 To read more, click here 👇 https://lnkd.in/dV3EKuS7 #BetterCotton #Sustainability #Cotton #WomensEmpowerment

Get Ready for Traceability! 🌎 🌱 Are you interested in sourcing products made with Physical (Traceable) Better Cotton? Discover how to track cotton from its country of origin through the supply chain, all the way to retailers and brands.   Join our upcoming webinar specifically for Retailer and Brand Members on 5 November, 14:00–15:15 GMT. 👉 Register here: https://lnkd.in/dt9AbX3s   For suppliers, manufacturers, traders, and distributors, we have dedicated sessions coming up: ✏️ 11 Oct – Mandarin https://lnkd.in/d2wtJfwd ✏️ 16 Oct – English (focus on Chain of Custody Standard implementation) https://lnkd.in/dX65hhz5 ✏️ 23 Oct – English (focus on new Better Cotton Traceability features on the Better Cotton Platform) https://lnkd.in/dV7rN37P ✏️ 25 Oct – Portuguese https://lnkd.in/dc89x-ZV   Can’t attend this time? No problem! Our webinars run regularly—sign up on our website: https://lnkd.in/eY_g6b5f 👏

This week, our colleagues have been in Cotonou, Benin, to participate at this year’s #WorldCottonDay event!🌍 🌱 👏 In one session, our COO, Lena Staafgard and her fellow panellists explored the environmental regulations facing the cotton sector and best practices for compliance. She reiterated the need to support smallholders in this transition to ensure nobody is left behind.💚 Meanwhile, our Director of Fundraising, Rebecca Owen, discussed the critical role women play in cotton production and strategies for promoting gender equality. Rebecca sits on the International Cotton Association Ltd’s Women in Cotton group which works to champion the roles of women across the industry. 👏 Our Senior Manager for Africa Programmes, Lisa B., was also in attendance and shared her insights on the cotton sector’s outlook on the continent. Her panel looked at Africa’s influence in global markets and potential pathways for greater success. 🌍 Finally, our Regional Manager for West Africa, Abdoul Aziz YANOGO, joined a session that explored market access strategies and the opportunities and challenges around trade and competitiveness. 🌱 #Cotton #Sustainability #Event

Better Cotton has officially launched a programme in Benin!🤝 🌍 Working with the Interprofessional Cotton Association of Benin (AIC), Better Cotton aims to engage more than 200,000 smallholder cotton farmers in order to embed sustainable farming practices, improve livelihoods and help them adapt to the effects of climate change.🌱 The agreement was formalised at a signing ceremony in Cotonou, Benin, alongside this year's #WorldCottonDay event, where both organisations met alongside stakeholders from across the country's cotton sector. 📝 Lena Staafgard, COO at Better Cotton, said, “As Better Cotton’s presence across Africa continues to grow, so too does the movement towards more sustainable cotton production. There is incredible appetite for change on the continent and we’ll work with partners new and old to leverage that.” 💚 To read more, click the link below! https://lnkd.in/dUxc3WFA Photo credit: Better Cotton #sustainability #Benin #Cotton #BetterCotton #Partnership #AIC

World Cotton Day is here, and Better Cotton is abuzz with activity! 🐝   The UN officially recognises 7 October as World Cotton Day (WCD) - a moment to reflect on cotton's value in our lives, economies and environment. This year's "Cotton for Good" theme acknowledges the many benefits of the fibre itself as well as the need to invest in sustaining the sector's future. 🍃   Today, all eyes are on Benin - where #WCD2024 is taking place - and Better Cotton representatives are proudly among the 400 attendees convening in Cotonou. 🙌   Stay tuned throughout this week as we share takeaways from this momentous event and others! In the meantime, celebrate along with us as we look back on some of the encouraging stories emerging from our programmes around the world: https://lnkd.in/e95gTH4q   Happy World Cotton Day! 💫 #BetterCotton #WorldCottonDay #sustainability #sustainableagriculture #cotton

This week, our colleagues have been in Uzbekistan at the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC)’s 82nd Plenary Meeting to represent Better Cotton and share their insights on promoting innovation in cotton value chains.🤝 🌎 At the event, held in Tashkent, Katerina Gorbunova led a session on strategies for improving cotton data accuracy. Katerina is our Country Manager for Uzbekistan – we launched a programme in the country in 2022 to support the production of more equitable and sustainable cotton.🤍 Our Senior Director of Impact & Development, Iain Gardiner, gave a talk about the impact of global events on commodity prices. Iain then travelled to visit a cotton farm and speak first-hand to the people involved in driving impact at field level.🌱 Nini Mehrotra, Senior Manager for Gender Equality, was also in attendance, sharing her expertise in a session on empowering women and closing the gender gap in the cotton industry.💪 It was a productive and inspiring week in Tashkent – we're excited to take the insights from the event forward to drive positive impact and help farming communities thrive.🙌 #Uzbekistan #Tashkent #ICAC #Cotton #Sustainability #Event

🌱Field-level impact 📈Membership growth 🏆Key milestones 🚀Future goals Last week, we released our 2023-24 Annual Report, providing a deep dive into all of the critical Better Cotton data from the past year. There's a lot to explore, so in our latest blog, CEO Alan McClay has compiled his key highlights from the report. For a quick breakdown of the most important info from 2023-24, head to the link below! https://lnkd.in/e4HW2ZsT #Data #Reporting #AnnualReport #Sustainability #Cotton #BetterCotton #Impact

We are pleased to announce the renewal of our strategic partnership in Greece with the cotton sustainability initiative ELGO-DOV!💙🤍 Greece is the largest cotton-producing country in Europe, and since 2020 Greek farmers certified against ELGO-DOV’s AGRO-2 Integrated Management Standard have been able to sell their cotton as Better Cotton. 👍 In the 22/23 cotton season, over 15,000 farmers attained an AGRO-2 certificate from ELGO-DOV, producing 100,549 metric tonnes of Better Cotton. This represents around a third of the country’s production for the season. 👏 Our CEO, Alan McClay, commented: "ELGO-DOV and the cotton farmers it supports have demonstrated a strong commitment to the production of more sustainable cotton. Our continued alignment and collaboration send out a powerful message that, together, we can drive further progress across the country." To read more, click the link below! https://lnkd.in/eFFgPvBh Photo credit: Better Cotton/Raisa Ayres Moesch and Alvaro Moreira #Sustainability #Greece #Cotton #BetterCotton #Partnership #ELGODOV

As we recently announced, Better Cotton has started the journey to become a certification scheme, ensuring that we meet new and emerging legislative requirements while maintaining robust and credible standards. ✅ However, the world of sustainability standards, certifications and regulations is complex, and it can be difficult to understand exactly what this change means. 🤔 To break the topic down, we sat down with Tom Owen, Better Cotton’s Head of Certification, to find out what certification really means, and why it matters for Better Cotton and our stakeholders. To find out more, click below.👇 https://lnkd.in/ezu98aQi #Certification #Standards #BetterCotton #Sustainability #Cotton #Textiles