Spotlight: Better Cotton Initiative

Better Cotton’s latest accounts show a financially solid, professionally run MSI that has made a conscious decision to invest heavily in certification, traceability and impact infrastructure – and is now reliant on stable brand and donor support to keep that system running smoothly. The picture is more “disciplined growth on tight margins” than either boom or fragility.

The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) was first conceived in 2005, when WWF led a multistakeholder roundtable to discuss sustainability solutions for the textile sector.

It officially launched in 2009. At the roundtable, companies and organisations including Adidas, Gap, H&M, the InterChurch Organisation for Development Cooperation (ICCO), International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP), International Finance Corporation, IKEA, Organic Exchange, Oxfam, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) UK and WWF pledged their support to BCI.