Better Cotton
The Group’s goal is to secure more sustainable cotton sources, but based on feedback from several stakeholder dialogues the company recognises that the use of certified organic cotton is not without challenges. In particular, we learnt that certified organic cotton does not address the most critical environmental impact of cotton farming – excessive water consumption.
Supported by international companies and NGOs, our approach is to tackle the most serious environmental challenges of cotton farming by providing training and capacity building to farmers in sustainable cotton farming methods without causing big price premiums.
The adidas Group has become a founding member of the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) that seeks to train cotton farmers to adopt a more sustainable approach to farming. This is consistent with the company’s general approach to build capacity in its supply chain. Together with other brands, NGOs and environmental organisations, the adidas Group has initiated a five-year plan, which aims to create and implement a set of better cotton standards and practices for the mainstream cotton growing industry.
Participating companies are preparing a review of their own sourcing arrangements, looking for examples where all links on the supply chain benefit, from farmer and spinner to garment manufacturer and retailer. Finding these win-wins and encouraging more arrangements like them is crucial to achieving the project’s goals to gather as many buyers behind this concept as possible and so create a critical mass demanding better cotton.
In 2006, consultations with regional organisations and local agricultural institutions started in India and Pakistan, as we set up the training and checking for the field-testing phase.
A full-time project manager was hired on behalf of the BCI Steering Board to support the project’s development. Extended stakeholder outreach to various interest groups took place, on the governmental and official side, as well as to the NGO community.
2007 developments
After carefully reviewing the BCI programme, the National Environmental Agencies of Sweden (SIDA) and Switzerland (SECO) declared their interest in supporting the programme. The agencies acknowledge its unique approach, which is complementary to other existing organic cotton or fair trade programmes.
While we wait for BCI cotton to come on stream, organic cotton was used in several adidas product ranges in 2007. These include training, kids and outdoor product lines as well as some of the fashion-oriented lines from adidas Sport Style.
- Organic cotton does not address the most critical environmental impact of cotton farming - excessive water consumption.