Better Cotton Initiative Launches New Label for Sustainable Cotton
The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) has chosen the world cotton day (7 October 2025) to launch a new certified BCI Cotton label for fashion and textile products, which allows retailers and brands to reach consumers with greater clarity about the origin and percentage of BCI Cotton in their products.
The label can be used by certified BCI Retailer and Brand Members only for products that contain a minimum percentage of 30% Physical BCI Cotton, which is sourced through the BCI traceability programme, while the remaining 70% cannot contain any other source of cotton, but only other materials. Physical BCI Cotton refers to cotton that has been produced and certified in accordance with the BCI field-level standard and traced back to its country of origin through the BCI traceability system. As of January 2026, every supply chain actor sourcing Physical BCI Cotton has been certified.
The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) is the world’s largest cotton sustainability organisation, supporting farming communities to survive and thrive, while protecting and restoring the environment. BCI brings together a global multi-stakeholder network of farm-level organisations, brands, government bodies, civil society, industry organisations, and supply chain actors to promote the supply and demand for cotton produced with sustainable practices.
The BCI’s annual report 2025, which covers field-level activities from the 2023-24 cotton season, states that 1.39 million farmers received a licence to sell their cotton as BCI Cotton. These farmers produced 5.64 million metric tonnes of BCI Cotton, representing approximately 23% of global cotton production. A total of 15 countries participate in BCI’s programmes, with ten of them implementing the BCI Standard system and five recognised as BCI Equivalent Standard countries, meaning they operate sustainable cotton programmes aligned with and benchmarked against the BCI Standard. Greece and Spain are among the five BCI benchmarking countries. In 2025 Spain completed its first year of partnership with BCI, while Greece reaffirmed its role as Europe’s top BCI Cotton producer.
The positive impacts reported by BCI include improved incomes for more than 650,000 licensed farmers; reduced synthetic nitrogen use per kilogram of cotton produced on 2.15 million hectares of land, involving 700,000 farmers; training of more than 550,000 women farmers or workers in capacity-building activities; and reduced volumes of synthetic pesticides applied per hectare for over 788,000 licensed farmers, with 81% of them reported not to use Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHP).
New legislation, including the EU Directive on Empowering Consumers (EmpCo) for the Green Transition, sets strict rules on the accuracy of sustainability information provided to consumers, specifying that only sustainability labels based on third-party certification schemes may be used on products after September 2026.
BCI established its certification scheme in February 2025, certifying over 3,000 supply chain actors within the first year of operation. Certifications are issued by independent third-party Certification Bodies (not affiliated with BCI), which are accredited by an internationally recognized accreditation body and operate in accordance with the international standard ISO 17065, thus ensuring compliance with EU regulations.
More information about Better Cotton Initiative can be found in the official BCI web site: https://bettercotton.org/
