BUSINESS BENEFITS
To read case studies of how real businesses have benefited from improved sustainable practices:
Build brand positioning for responsibility
Wins:
- Build customer loyalty
- Differentiate your brand
- Gain investor approval
- Attract and retain talent
Minimise reputational risk
Wins:
- Avoid cost of supply chain scandals
- Answer your critics
- Score well in sustainability rankings of raw materials
- Avoid cost of supply chain scandals
- Answer your critics
- Score well in sustainability rankings of raw materials
Demonstrate positive impact
Wins:
- Share tangible results with customers and other stakeholders
- Meet and go beyond legal requirements and voluntary commitments
Keep pace with competitors
Wins:
- Build / maintain trust with customers
- Be part of a wider movement
- Avoid negative comparisons with more sustainable brands
Maintain and build investor interest
Increase transparency
Create long-term resilience and security of supply
Demonstrate commitment to systemic sustainability
Wins:
- Lay the foundations for more ambitious systems change
- Play a proactive role in a wider movement
BENEFITS TO FARMERS
All sustainable standards benefit farmers in several ways; these vary depending on the standard and where the cotton is grown, and how the standard is implemented.
Reduction of inputs
Wins:
- Improve farmers’ and workers’ health
- Improve health of local ecosystem, particularly water systems
- Reduce costs of inputs
- Build capacity for sustainable farming techniques
Resilience in changing conditions
Wins:
- Training that enhances resilience
- Increase fertility of the land in the long term
- Benefit future generations of farmers
Cotton premiums improve livelihoods and communities
Wins:
- Many cotton standards create premium opportunity for farmers
- Ripple effect of increased farmer income felt in local community
- Support gender equality – improving opportunities for women in farming communities
- Prevent the use of child and forced labour
Training opportunities
Wins:
- Educate and skill up smallholder cotton farmers
- Build capacity for long-term sustainable farming