Cargill’s Doyle Wins 2013 ACSA Essay Contest

Each year, ACSA helps to prepare some of the future leaders of the cotton and textile industries through its International Cotton institute (ICI), an eight-week residential program that provides students with a basic education in all aspects of the cotton industry and the international business environment.
And each year, Cotton International is proud to judge the annual Essay Contest, which challenges the graduating students to share their thoughts on a topic of particular interest to the industry. “This year’s topic was sustainability, and it was left to the students to determine which angle to take on that,” says Cotton International Editor and essay judge Mike McCue. “There’s a lot more to sustainability than the reduction of pesticides and water usage. We chose that topic because it allowed the students to be creative in what aspect that wanted to address.”
The winner of the 2013 Essay Contest is Cargill’s Steven Doyle, who managed to cover multiple facets of sustainability in a concise and compelling fashion, McCue said. “This was a particularly strong group of essays.
McCue cited the following excerpt as reflecting the insight Doyle displayed in his submission:

“The advent of the Better Cotton Initiative, Cotton made in Africa, and organic cotton has shown us that sustainability can be positively impacted at any stage of the textile chain. From beginning to end, producer to Puma, we all have a part to play. Harmful environmental and social conditions do not just exist on farms, but also in textile factories – as we have seen to our horror recently [in Bangladesh]. The philosophy of education and transparency handed out to producers is just as valid for the rest of the chain.”

When informed that he had won the 2013 Essay Contest, Doyle said, “I was well aware the topic of sustainability was a hot one before starting out on my essay. However, it was only through my research that I fully appreciated how dynamic this area is right now. I would like to acknowledge that the course was expertly run and organized by Bill Griffin, Keith Elzie and Lauren Shelley. The concepts learned and relationships formed are sure to stand everyone in good stead for the future.”
Doyle’s winning essay will be published in its entirety in the 2014 Cotton International Annual edition.