Inside Fashion’s Regenerative Cotton, And Brands Paying Green Premiums

Cotton, comprising a quarter of today’s fashion, connects us–through fabric–to farms in 80 countries, tended by over 32 million farmers and supporting hundreds of millions of rural households. Cotton’s had a bad rap, though, through misquoted ‘unquenchable thirst’ stats and pesticide use guesstimates, and while the stats are usually wrong, there are many acres of room for improvement. Conventional farming’s high greenhouse gas emissions and hazardous chemicals are pushing some brands to partner with regenerative cotton solution providers to source low-impact cotton that doesn’t merely do less harm, but proactively restores the land.

Conventional, organic, regenerative?

Today, cotton is mainly grown conventionally, requiring synthetic chemicals to kill pests and ensure high production volumes (yields), which damages soil health and biodiversity.

Organic cotton (grown without any chemicals) has struggled to expand beyond 1% of the market due to costs, constraints on farming flexibility, and sometimes yields. It’s hoped that regenerative agriculture–a ‘middle ground’ between organic and conventional farming–could sustain cotton production and farmer livelihoods and restore soil health, enabling the land to fulfill its role as one of Earth’s critical carbon sinks in the fight against climate change.

What is Regenerative Cotton?

Regenerative farming is a western science-based toolkit of actions that are taken in response to what the soil and surrounding ecosystem are ‘saying’ upon measurement and analysis, in contrast to conventional ‘heavy handed’ widespread chemical use to expedite cropping and reduce manual labour. Regenerative farming allows synthetic chemicals to save crops only when economic viability would otherwise be lost.

While cotton is farmed worldwide, the manner and social consequences of farming differ enormously. For example, Australia’s industrial cotton farms average 400 hectares and employ 7,000 people, while India’s 6 million cotton farmers work 1.5-hectare plots manually, often also growing food for their families.

India in focus

India produces most of the world’s cotton, which is cultivated by farming families who became owners of the land they worked after the British left in the 1940s. However, the colonial influence is still felt in the form of western-developed seeds (many local cotton seed varieties are now extinct) accompanied by obligatory ‘Western’ chemicals. Farmers say their forebears initially enjoyed super yields, but the soil has hardened over time, and yields have plummeted, leading to more chemical use. Growing their food on the same land, they are fearful of the chemicals they and their family ingest.

Some farmers in India are now turning to regenerative practices enabled by training and monitoring from organizations, including Materra and Cotton Connect, who work directly with fashion brands to secure orders for regenerative cotton. Hallmarks of the regenerative cotton farming toolkit in India include combining local plants, leaves, animal dung, and earthworms to make biofertilizers and ‘vermicompost’; sewing ‘sacrificial plants’ between cotton plants to draw away pests and eliminate the need for chemical pesticides; as well as pheromone traps, which capture male bollworms and prevent them from procreating and attacking the cotton. Another key feature is ‘low tillage,’ meaning not disturbing the soil between crop sewing, allowing it to retain its moisture and microorganism activity, improving the soil’s health, moisture, and carbon retention.

These processes result in more physical work for farmers and more vigilant and regular placement of biofertilizers and natural pest-dissuasion devices. This eliminates or drastically reduces the cost of fertilizers and pesticides and the need for water, which is often pumped by electric or diesel generators, thereby saving water use, energy costs, and emissions. Synthetic chemicals are used only to save a crop that would otherwise be lost, passing the farmer’s economic viability threshold.

Regeneration: multi-stakeholder, collective purchasing

Founded in 2009, CottonConnect is a social enterprise supporting cotton farmers to transition from conventional to organic farming, but it recently introduced a regenerative cotton program. “We started our regenerative journey with Primark in 2021 through the Primark Cotton Project” explained CottonConnect CEO, Alison Ward. “[Together] we developed our first regenerative framework, and the Project piloted the Regenerative Code of Conduct with 3,000 farmers”.

The pilot spanned three-years and was developed with local partners in India, where field executives (often agronomy graduates from local universities) worked with farmers throughout the cotton growing season. Farm and crop data collection and monitoring was conducted by a local partner, the CottonConnect evaluation team and an external verification agency. The program is now being rolled-out across India, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

CottonConnect forecasts collective demand ahead of the season from customers (including Primark, Boohoo, Lindex, and Carrefour) but doesn’t add a ‘green premium’, instead following the commodity cotton price. “Brands pay for the training and farmer education, and we have left the market to operate itself,” Ward explains.

Ward says CottonConnect wants to “create demand and drive accountability [at brands],” so that when disasters such as recents floods in Pakistan damage crops, CottonConnect can help keep brands committed to their supply chains. “We were able to talk to customers about the group of farmers impacted [in Pakistan]” thereby avoiding a rash exit by fashion executives.

A challenge the program faces is traceability to prove that brands actually receive regenerative cotton, since all cotton is commodity traded in a single supply chain, agnostic to how it was farmed. Traditionally, certificates equating the volume of a particular type of cotton entering and exiting the supply chain–a ‘mass balance’ approach–have been used. Still, cotton mixing during processing is common, with such certifications highly fallible to errors and fraud.

“We are deliberately not [using] mass balance [and instead] use Tracebale [software], which farmers link [their crop and harvest data] to via a QR code, and we have extra people in the [cotton processing facilities] to ensure data [accuracy and reconciliation].” However, it’s conceivable that mixing might still occur, given the lack of segmentation in trade and processing facilities.

CottonConnect reports impressive aggregated impact reduction across its regenerative programs in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China, Egypt, and Turkey. In 2024, an average increase of 6.1% in cotton yield with a 14.1% reduction in farmer costs (increasing profitability by 26.1%) was reported. Synthetic pesticide use decreased by 21.4% and fertilizer use by 17.5%, with 23% lower carbon emissions per acre (0.4 hectares), according to statistics verified by FLOCER.

Regeneration: a direct farm-to-brand sourcing model

Materra, a for-profit tech startup helmed by Edward Brial, is headquartered in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Its regenerative training program is delivered by the startup’s own team of local agronomists and scientists and is underpinned by its proprietary mobile and web app, Co:farm.

“We are a tech company, [whereas] other organizations and multi-stakeholder initiatives are trying to connect to [external] dashboards [for program management and reporting],” says Bridal. “Materra built the first digitization solution called Co:Farm, which aggregates over 300 data points to optimize resource use and sends automated messages through Whatsapp [to farmers] to deliver the most holistic services, cheaply”.

Uniquely, Materra has established a segregated supply chain through dedicated delivery and processing slots at gins (where the harvested cotton is pre-processed before being transported to the yarn spinner). This arrangement avoids mixing with other cotton fibers, ensures homogenous fiber length, and ultimately delivers a superior yarn quality, says Kuldeep Khatri, Head of Environmental Ethics at Materra.

Materra farmers are paid a premium by brands for their cotton in a direct farm-to-brand arrangement. Farmers save money due to reduced chemicals, fertiliser, and water use. Another unique feature is that farmers receive bonus premiums on top of the agreed green premium when implementing regenerative practices that exceed the baseline requirements, further improving biodiversity and soil health on their land.

Materra has established direct sourcing partnerships between brands, including Mango and Ecoalf, and farmers clustered across India. “In Gujarat, where we’re working, there is a deep-rooted farming tradition. Through our collaboration with Materra, we’re helping farmers transition to regenerative cotton to restore soil health, reduce water use by up to 80%, and [gain a more] resilient and secure livelihood,” says Carolina Blazquez, Head of Innovation and Sustainability at Ecoalf. “These farmers are the foundation of the fashion industry, yet they’re often overlooked—supporting them is just as important as choosing better materials.”

Commencing with 23 farmers in 2019, today, over 4,000 farmers follow Materra’s regenerative program. In 2023, Materra reported (from its Mansa farm cluster in Gujarat) a 21% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per kg of cotton lint, a 7% reduction in water use, and a 12% increase in profitability.

“When we talk about sustainable fashion, we need to look beyond the finished product—true change starts with those who cultivate the raw materials,” says Blazquez, signaling a dedication to direct sourcing that has featured in several brand strategies across natural fibers including wool in recent years.

But is Materra’s approach scalable, and will brands pay the ‘green premium’ of up to 15% to farmers? “We’re pushing the limits of what can be done on the ground, [making us] best at serving [brands’] needs and reducing the burden of [sustainability] reporting. We aim to be a major player in the market by 2032,” says Brial.

Materra’s CEO alludes to European regulations and the new era of corporate compliance, which promises unprecedented extended producer responsibility (falling on brands) and demands better supply chain impact and risk management. Brands adopting regenerative materials know this, and the data offered by regenerative farming is a benefit compared with sourcing data-scant conventional cotton. The next challenge for these regenerative cotton programs will be scaling to achieve mass adoption and market share.