When you choose organic cotton instead of conventional, for each piece of clothing you can potentially save water, energy and carbon emissions. It may not seem like much but start adding up the potential impact you could have made by converting the t-shirts and jeans in your entire wardrobe.
It takes an average of 2,168 gallons of water to make one t-shirt with conventional cotton! By comparison, a t-shirt made with organic cotton only uses 186 gallons. That’s a difference of 1,982 gallons... for one shirt. To put that in perspective, the average person drinks about 58 gallons of water in a year!
Cotton accounts for 2.5% of the world’s agriculture crops - that’s about 25 million tonnes annually.
When cotton is grown intensively, it requires large amounts of water for irrigation.
By 2025, two-thirds of the world’s population may face water shortages.
Organic cotton is 80% rain-fed, which reduces pressure on local water sources.
Despite accounting for only 2.5% of the world’s agricultural land, it uses 16% of all insecticides annually. Those chemicals can contaminate the soil, air and water, and can eventually end up in our own food supply.
Organic cotton not only spares the use of insecticides, but chemical fertilizers as well.
Organic cotton farmers use farming methods such as composting, mulching and crop rotation to build a “living soil,” nurturing their land to produce healthy crops for years to come.
Cotton grown organically reduces soil erosion and creates healthy soil, helping to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. It helps the farmers to work within their limits, supporting the planet in a sustainable way.
Through reduced agricultural inputs like the production of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, tractor operations and irrigation, the rise in demand for organic cotton makes a big impact on the fight against global warming - using a whopping 62% less energy than conventional cotton.
While it’s much harder to quantify the social and economic benefits of organic cotton, there are a few things we can look at to be able to say that organic cotton changes farmers’ lives and their communities for the better. 96% of organic cotton farmers report that they practice composting and 88% of them are able to grow their own crops for additional income.
According to a study by the Textile Exchange, 65% of organic cotton farmers work in Fair Trade or decent work conditions, with reasonable work hours, working with protective clothing, fair wages and the freedom to associate and bargain collectively with each other.
Organic cotton farming does not just reduce a farmer’s exposure to toxic and persistent pesticides; it eliminates them, keeping farmers and their families safe and healthy.
Choosing to work with organic cotton is one of these choices. By choosing organic over conventional cotton we have the purchasing power to influence other brands, manufacturers and even farmers
We can change the world.
