Top Ten Companies Under Sustainable Cotton Ranking 2017

Pesticide Action Network UK in an association with Solidarida and WWF International has released the rankings of companies according to their Sustainability Efforts for the year 2017 . The companies have been scored out of 100 on the basis of Policy , Uptake and Traceability . The companies which have been using huge amount of cotton in their end products , have been assessed under this . The benchmark of 10,000 MT consumption of cotton has been kept for this this ranking assessment. The assessment has been done for a company as a whole not the individual brands owned by such companies . The surveyors selected companies according to sector indices and benchmarks, as well as lists of top companies in the fashion and garment sector and their respective markets. A total of 75 companies, 27 from North America, 33 from Europe, 14 from Asia ,3 from Brazil and 2 from South Africa have been assessed under this mechanism . 

A questionnaire covering three areas – policy, actual uptake and traceability – formed the backbone of the company assessment. For each area, the consultants used a number of specific indicators to assess company performance. Policy carries 20 Points , Uptake which means the implementation of the policy carries 55 points and Traceability which stands for origin of cotton , volume of cotton supplied and the details of their suppliers shares 25 points out of total 100.

Overview of Status By Score

On the basis of scores , the companies have been categorized under certain ‘ STATUS SEGMENT’ signifying the level of efforts for Sustainability. Below is the detail showing for the same .                                                     

RANK 1 – IKEA | SWEDEN

The highest scoring company and leading the way with 76.7 points out of 100 is the Swedish Company – IKEA. The company showed overall best sustainability performance and leading the charts by big margin against all the companies listed . The company deserves a round of applauds for its efforts and specially for including  ‘its water policy and human rights due diligence procedures ‘ within the cotton cultivation stage. The traceability criteria seems little disappointing as the company didn’t unveil its suppliers list . 

By its own criteria, IKEA claims to have been sourcing 100% of its cotton sustainably since 2015 but this includes those cotton also which has been standardized by the company itself as the ‘ Towards Better Cotton however these have not been recognized while calculating the results . IKEA sources 17.9% recycled cotton and 69.4% Better Cotton. This results in an uptake of more sustainable cotton of 87.3% as measured by the criteria of this ranking – the highest percentage of all companies assessed.In calendar year 2016, IKEA sourced 131,000 MT of Cotton. IKEA’s Sustainability Report 2016 shows a diagram of countries of origin. 83% of sources are specified, the rest fall under ‘other’.

RANK 2 – TCHIBO GmbH |GERMANY

The second company in the list is the company from Germany – TCHIBO with a score of 60.3 out 100 points . The company uses CMIA and organic cotton in its products. Its reliance on these standards is reflected in Tchibo’s corporate policies for cotton cultivation. The company’s efforts on biodiversity are integrated as an essential component of environmental protection in management and reporting systems. Tchibo has a target for 100% sustainable sourcing in 2020.Tchibo sourced 80% of its cotton as organic or CMIA in 2015 and targeting to reach to the level of 100% in coming years.

RANK 3 – C&A Group | GERMANY

C&A scores 59 out of 100 points making it the third best performer and leading the way. The company is a member of various sector initiatives and organizations such as BCI, CMIA, OCA and Textile Exchange. It is one of the companies, together with its foundation, that appears to be making a big effort to create a more sustainable cotton sector. With a goal of reaching 100% of sustainable cotton use by 2020 , the company has joined the BCI in 2016 and started selling recycled denim jeggings made from pre-consumer waste.  53% of cotton sourced is organic or Better Cotton, of which 33% is organic cotton. The company has improved its uptake of more sustainable cotton compared to last year. In total, the company sourced around 63,000 MT of more sustainable cotton.

On Traceability , The company has improved and now discloses more detail of its suppliers further up the supply chain. C&A publishes a list of all its tier-1 (cut and sew production units) and tier-2 suppliers (printing, laundries, and embroidery) across four regions; as well as a partial list of tier-3 suppliers (vertically integrated production units, including spinning, fabric production and dying) however the company does not publish a list of its yarn suppliers.

RANK 4 – Marks and Spencer PLC | UNITED KINGDOM

Marks & Spencer ranked the fourth best performing company with a score of  57.2 out of 100 points. The company has set a target of sourcing 100% cotton from more sustainable sources by 2019 and get involved in a wide range of cotton sustainability initiatives including BCI, Textile Exchange and Cotton 2040’s Building Demand for Sustainable Cotton Working Group. The company has achieved almost half of their target of sourcing sustainable cotton as about 49% of the cotton used in its products was more sustainable in 2016 which equals to 23,000 MT lint of cotton.The company published its annual use of cotton (50,000 MT lint) and a list of countries of origin of this cotton (India, China, Pakistan, Turkey, Brazil, USA, Africa and Australia). Though the company published a list of tier-1 suppliers through an interactive map but does not disclose information about tier-2 and tier-3 suppliers.

RANK 5 – Hennes & Mauritz AB | SWEDEN

With 54.8 out of 100 points, H&M is the fifth best performer . H&M stands alone when it comes to disclosing  not only a list of its tier-1 suppliers but also those found deeper in the supply chain. This makes the company a frontrunner in the area of supply chain transparency.

The company has set a goal of using 100% cotton from more sustainable sources by 2020. Although most of efforts relate to BCI membership, the company has a clear intent to reduce water use throughout the supply chain, including the cotton cultivation stage. Being one of the biggest users of organic cotton , there are several recycling initiatives are in place under different H&M brands. The company has some strict policies to ensure that their suppliers  must not be using cotton from originating in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan or Syria. H&M increased its uptake of more sustainable cotton from 30% in 2016 to 43% in 2017. This includes organic cotton, Better Cotton and recycled cotton. 

Allowing for methodological changes between the 2016 and 2017 rankings, of the 25 companies assessed in both editions, 18 improved their performance. This is most obvious in uptake with 14 out of the 25 showing greater uptake. The top 5 companies in 2016 (IKEA, C&A Group, H&M, Adidas and Nike, Inc.) all increased their sourcing of more sustainable cotton (as a percentage of total volume) by approximately 20% in 2017. Of all these companies, C&A Group made the biggest advance in uptake almost doubling its score.

The Rest five companies under Top Ten are below :

* Source : Report Published By Pesticide Action Network UK