Thread counts: regenerative cotton on the rise in fashion

Every year, approximately 26 million tonnes of cotton are produced globally,¹ enough to make 18 t-shirts for every person on Earth. Cotton farming is a sprawling behemoth of an industry, worth around USD 40 billion annually² and supporting more than 100 million families³, often in the poorest regions.

As with many of the crops we grow, cotton is cultivated mostly in intensive, monoculture farms which are often created by clearing natural habitats. Cotton is the world’s fourth largest user of pesticides⁴, which are now known to destroy biodiversity and degrade soils⁵, reducing their ability to retain water.

Cotton is also prolifically thirsty. As much as 29,000 litres of water can be needed for each kilogram of harvested cotton, almost ten times the amount needed for other water-intensive crops like rice or sugar cane,⁶ and many cotton farms turn to nearby rivers to draw the water they need for irrigation, depleting much-needed local freshwater reserves.

The fashion industry – which uses 64% of the cotton produced each year⁷ – is coming under growing pressure to reduce its environmental impact. As major brand names set their sights on making fashion more sustainable, clothing longevity, recyclability, toxic dyes and manufacturing emissions are all in the crosshairs. So, too, is cotton.

Restoring Lake Chad

In the central African nation of Chad, cotton is big business – with up to 25% of Chadians reliant on cotton farming for their livelihoods, few nations are as dependent on the crop. Nearly a century of largescale cotton farming has taken its toll on the environment, however. Between 1963 and 2001, Lake Chad, which supplies water to 30 million people, shrank by 90%⁸ and it is feared that, on current trends, the lake could disappear altogether within two decades. Highly water-intensive cotton crops, which are often irrigated from rivers that feed Lake Chad, are thought to be partly to blame.

This year, the first harvest is due from a twelve-hectare pilot project that aims to reinvent the way cotton is grown in the country. In the Logon Occidental region, local farmers are being supported by the Circular Bioeconomy Alliance (CBA) – a global alliance working to build an economy that operates in harmony with nature – and fashion giant LVMH, to turn conventional monoculture cotton plantations into ‘agroforests’, forest farms where cotton is grown beneath and between native trees.

The project will serve as a “Living Lab”, exploring the potential for cotton to be grown in sympathy with nature, rather than at nature’s expense. By planting trees across their land, it is hoped the farmers will roll back the tide of deforestation, restore soil health and local biodiversity, and reduce the need for fertilisers, pesticides and, crucially, irrigation. For the farmers, the project will also create new income streams, with the trees providing alternative crops such as fruit and nuts that can be sold for food or to the cosmetics industry.

Marc Palahí, CEO of the CBA and Chief Nature Officer at holistiQ Investment Partners, Lombard Odier Investment Managers, explains: “We wanted to create an action-oriented approach. If there’s no more Lake Chad in twenty years’ time, just imagine the consequences for the population. Living Labs offer an opportunity to experiment, learn, share, and demonstrate that transformation is possible, even in complex situations like Lake Chad.”

Read also: Supporting the transition towards a nature-based economy | Lombard Odier

The rise of regenerative cotton

The Chad Living Lab is part of a wider effort by the fashion industry to move towards more sustainable textiles, with much of the push being led by the luxury sector. In 2022, a number of leading brands signed the landmark Manifesto For Regenerative Fashion⁹, in collaboration with the CBA and the Fashion Taskforce of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, aiming to build a fashion industry that sources materials from healthy, biodiversity-rich landscapes, and to empower the local and indigenous communities that rely on nature for their livelihoods.

Cotton has become a key part of the collective’s efforts. Leading fashion designer Stella McCartney, for instance, is partnering with Turkey-based family-owned cotton producer SOKTAS to support their transition to regenerative cotton cultivation.¹⁰ Where the Lake Chad Living Lab is creating agroforests, the SOKTAS project, which has grown from an initial 5 hectares to 90 hectares, uses intercropping – in which cotton plants are grown between other crops such as wheat and sugar beet – to create the conditions that enable chemical inputs to be eliminated and irrigation to be minimised. Meanwhile in Italy, Giorgio Armani, another signatory to the Manifesto, announced the launch of the Apulia Regenerative Cotton Project¹¹, aiming to be among the first cotton agroforestry field experiments in Europe.

For firms embracing regenerative cotton, the transition is about more than ethical values, it is an acknowledgement that sustainability sells. In 2024, premium denim label Citizens of Humanity launched their own Regenerative Cotton project¹², committing to source cotton from regenerative farms while also supporting farmers by providing financial assistance and access to education and scientific advice. Recognising the boost to brand value, Citizens of Humanity launched the project with a major marketing drive, fronted by supermodel and environmental activist Shalom Harlow. 

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