Organic Cotton

Definition

Organic cotton is a certified natural fibre that has been grown without synthetic chemicals and cultivated from non-genetically modified plants. Producers of organic cotton embrace environmentally sustainable practices, making better or more efficient use of resources such as water, alongside improved welfare and labour standards for workers.

Production

Cotton is the world’s largest non-food industrial crop and is grown in tropical and subtropical regions across the globe. The use of cotton as a material dates back at least 8,000 years and was widely cultivated and utilised across its native regions of India, Africa and South America. In 2024, the top cotton producers were China (24%), India (23%), Brazil (13%) and USA (11%), accounting for the bulk of the approximately 26 million tonnes of cotton harvested in each year.¹ Of this, organic cotton accounts for 1-2%, with growth in production currently anticipated at 37% year on year. The main producers of organic cotton are India (38%), Turkey (24%), China (10%) and Kyrgyzstan (9%).²

Successful cotton cultivation requires high levels of sunshine and moderate levels of rainfall. Both are generally met within cotton’s natively grown regions, although as a crop it is considered to be very water-intensive when compared to other natural fibres such as hemp. Organic cotton fields in India and Western Africa are often entirely rain-fed and therefore help reduce the region’s water footprint, whereas a large proportion of the cotton industry is cultivated in areas with lower levels of rainfall where additional water is obtained through irrigation. Poor irrigation and cultivation practices have led to areas of desertification in Central Asia where cotton is a major national export.³

The cycle of planting to harvest for cotton is approximately 5-6 months, with seedlings developing within the first few weeks. After flowering, the cotton plant develops a ball of protective fibres around its seeds, known as a boll. Once the boll has matured, it opens to reveal the familiar cotton fibres, which are then ready for harvesting. Cotton is harvested either manually or by machine, with about 30% of global production currently machine picked. Manual picking is slower but generally considered to be a better method of preserving the fibre quality of the crop. As a significant global commodity, cotton provides livelihoods for up to 1 billion people throughout the world, including 100 million rural households across more than 75 countries. 90% of these cotton farmers live in developing countries.⁴

In Use

Cotton is a highly versatile garment material accounting for around 20% of global fibre production,⁵ but is also extensively used in fabric for upholstery, bedding and towelling. Cotton’s modern popularity came about as the result of an increasing dominance of global trading empires in the 1600s, which commercialised the fibre as a more easily washable and colourful alternative to wool. Simultaneously, cotton played a prominent role in the slave trade between Europe, Africa and America. It accounted for much of USA’s wealth and development before the civil war, by which point the country had rapidly risen to become the largest cotton producer in the world, responsible for well over half its annual exports.⁶ The manufacturing of cotton cloth in the UK was also at the heart of the industrial revolution, fuelling the rapid expansion of the cotton industry with the city of Manchester accounting for 80% of global cotton fabric production in the 1800s. This rapid evolution of a global cotton industry created a foundation for the some of most popular garments in use today, with typical western consumers said to consume around 9 cotton T-shirts every year.⁷

There is no discernible difference between organic and non-organic cotton; both are characterised by softness, durability and absorbency as well as an ability to hold dyes. Although some garments may be manufactured exclusively from cotton, many fabrics blend cotton with other, mostly synthetic, fibres such as polyester (to make polycotton) with the aim of improving cost, shape and maintenance. These blended fibres create a notable challenge when separating for recycling and most cotton garments also contain other synthetic materials such as labels and sewing threads, zips, buttons and a range of synthetic dyes.

End-of-Life

A lack of infrastructure for recycling cotton means that where recycling does take place, much will be down-cycled into lower-value items such as insulation, stuffing or industrial fabrics. Once re-used in these applications, it becomes problematic to separate and recycle materials and they are usually discarded.⁸ The UK generates one of the highest levels of textiles waste in Europe, accounting for about 3 kg per person per year, with less than 1% of used garments estimated to be recycled into new clothes.⁹ 

Unlike its synthetic equivalent polyester, cotton will biodegrade relatively quickly as it is made of cellulose – an organic compound that forms plant cell and vegetable fibres. Research indicates that the biodegradability of cotton is much greater than that of synthetics in a compost environment – decomposing 77% in 12 weeks, versus only a slight degradation for its polyester equivalent.¹⁰ However, despite its natural properties, cotton still plays a significant part in textiles waste and contributes to an estimated 92 million tonnes of discarded garments every year – equivalent to a rubbish truck full of clothes sent to landfill every second and across the industry.¹¹

Although private systems for charity donations and recycling collections are widely available in the UK, typically only 20% of donations are resold as secondhand or preloved items, with the majority exported abroad¹². In order to achieve a meaningful closed-loop or circular solutions to cotton waste, companies such as Recover™ turn industrial and consumer textile waste into valuable high-quality recycled cotton fibre and fibre blends – producing 350,000 metric tons of recycled cotton fibre per year by 2026 with facilities in Spain, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Certification

Organic certification is a legally controlled term, guided by IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements), and means a cotton grower must be certified to a relevant government-controlled organic standard. The organic cotton standards from GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) and OCS (Organic Content Standard) are the leading global schemes that set criteria for third-party certification of organic materials and supply chains. 

Certifications such as the Fairtrade Textile Standard also encourage farmers in developing countries to reduce the usage of synthetic agricultural chemicals while supporting the adaptation to changing climate patterns. Although not an organic standard, approximately 65% of Fairtrade cotton farmers hold an organic certification.¹³ 

Before a cotton crop can be recognised as organic, producers must use organic practices for around three years, during which time the soils and ecosystems rebalance, which typically results in low yields, which are known to discourage full conversion to organic. Organisations such as Fairtrade and global non-profit Textile Exchange work with producers to encourage programs that recognise and incentivise these ‘in-conversion’ or ‘transitional cotton’ periods in order to meet the growing demand for organic cotton.¹⁴

Complex global supply chains create a significant challenge when tracing organic cotton from farm to final product, although Textile Exchange currently estimate that at least 30% of all global cotton production can be certified as ‘Preferred Cotton’. This denotes a cotton product that has been sourced at a higher standard of sustainability or social impact than conventionally-produced cotton. Examples of Preferred Cotton include recycled, Fairtrade and BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) products. BCI does not exclude genetically modified cotton seeds or synthetic chemicals, but do set standards to encourage and empower cotton farmers to protect the natural environment and improve unsafe and unfair labour conditions in cotton farming, processing and textile factories.