Standards & schemes
Better Cotton Initiative
In brief
Better Cotton is the largest cotton sustainability programme by volume, licensing farmers against its Principles & Criteria (v3.2), which cover crop protection, water stewardship, soil health, biodiversity, fibre quality, decent work and farm management, with a continuous-improvement model rather than a pass/fail bar. Critically for claims, its standard chain-of-custody model is mass-balance: a retailer sourcing "Better Cotton" volumes supports licensed production, but the physical cotton in a given garment is not traceable to a licensed farm — volumes are matched administratively. (Physical traceability options have been introduced, but mass-balance remains the dominant model.) This is why Better Cotton members communicate in terms of volumes sourced as a percentage of cotton use, not "this product contains sustainable cotton." Claims are governed by the Better Cotton Claims Framework, and misuse has drawn regulatory scrutiny. Certification supports a claim only within the licensed scope and chain-of-custody model; it does not by itself prove outcomes or validate wording beyond that scope.
Conditional relationships
A relationship does not mean that the standard proves or validates every use of a claim.
Recognition & legal context
No reviewed law references are published.
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