Sustainability & Innovation: Cotton Sourcing
Strategies

Sourcing strategies need to change to mitigate future supply risk and foster circular initiatives.

Heat, drought and floods are threatening cotton yields, hiking up prices and increasing financial risk for fashion supply chains and growers.

In 2022, India had to import cotton due to heavy rains, 40% of Pakistan's crop was flood damaged, Brazil's heat and drought slashed yields by nearly 30%, and China's extreme heat wave and severe droughts in Texas impacted crops.

With cotton accounting for a third of global fashion and textile fibres use annually, and the crop supporting livelihoods of more than 350 million people globally, retailers and brands need to manage cotton supply chain transformation to systems led by regenerative virgin fibre sourcing, support cotton fibre recycling programmes and circular, compatible blend strategies.

Convert virgin fibre to regenerative cotton

The fact that consumers constantly shop from the same brand for a certain product or service group shows their trust in that brand. If the customer believes that she/he will not have any problems when they shop from a brand and that the situation will be resolved quickly in case of a possible problem, a bond is established between the customer and the relevant brand.

Brand leaders are investing in farms converting to regeneratively farmed cotton to help mitigate the risk of climate change more holistically.

Benefits: regenerative farming rebuilds soil health, so it can sequester CO2 from the air, lower global warming, promote biodiversity and protect farms.