GOTS CERTIFIED ORGANIC COTTON

Organic cotton is a more sustainable choice for a myriad of reasons. While conventional cotton is grown using pesticides and chemicals which degrade the soil, reducing the fertility of the land, organic agriculture has a positive, restorative effect. Through chemical-free farming practices, growers can enrich the land creating healthy, carbon-rich soils which require less water and mainly relies on rainwater. Pesticide runoff and the contamination associated with it, is avoided. Crop rotation encourages biodiversity and natural pest control which benefits surrounding flora and fauna. The social and economic benefits are also clear, organic cotton farmers are not reliant on costly pesticides, they can yield healthy crops with less water and their communities, often in developing nations, are safe from water and food contamination.

The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) is a far-reaching certification which ensures best practice from seed to final product. The standard sets requirements concerning worker rights and social conditions as outlined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and includes, but is not limited to fair renumeration and assessment of a living wage. GOTS certification also ensures better practices for fibre processing and dyeing, enforcing the use of GOTS approved colourants and auxiliaries and fabric mills must demonstrate environment management, including wastewater treatment.

Since we begun using GOTS organic cotton in July 2020, we can estimate a saving of 217’558 litres of water compared with using conventional cotton. This is based on data from the Textile Exchange’s 2014 Life-Cycle Assessment of organic cotton which has calculated water usage during the life cycle of a cotton t-shirt. A t-shirt made from conventional cotton uses approximately 8206 litres of water compared with water usage of 704 litres for the same t-shirt made from cotton grown and processed organically, a saving of 7502 litres.