In a recent study, the WWF compared and reviewed the sustainability criteria of six widely used international cotton standards.
Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) performs excellently in this benchmarking, leaving other well-known standards such as Better Cotton behind in many criteria. WWF states, “CmiA has the greatest total coverage of benchmarked criteria. It exceeds all other benchmarked criteria on water (…). It has some coverage of all the benchmark social criteria – something which none of the other benchmarked standards do.”
The WWF study examined the standard criteria on water, soil, agrochemicals, biodiversity, gender equity, forced and child labor, workers’ rights and occupational safety, and monitoring & evaluation. In addition to the excellent results in the areas of water and social criteria mentioned above, the study also emphasizes CmiA’s particularly good coverage of the criteria in the areas of monitoring & evaluation and biodiversity.
The result is a confirmation that CmiA is on a very good track. But as is well known, what is good can always get better. For as WWF states about CmiA’s work, “The theme with the weakest coverage (…) is climate change, where more could be done to support producers (…).”
To perform excellently in a comparative study on standard criteria is certainly a great success. However, it is much more important for us to emphasize that it was our partners in Africa who made the extremely successful implementation of the CmiA standard possible. We continue to work together with our partner cotton companies to improve the social, economic, and ecological living conditions of the millions of small cotton farmers south of the Sahara.