Vision 21 Dives Deep into Cotton's Life Cycle

By Jim.Robinson|January 13, 2011

Vision 21, a Cotton Foundation project focused in part on setting sustainability and efficiency benchmarks in the cotton industry, is closing in on completion of a cotton life cycle inventory. Some three years in the making, the inventory is tentatively scheduled for completion and release during the second quarter of 2011. The completed inventory will provide a picture of the impact of cotton on sustainability-related resources such as energy, water use and environmental quality.

The goal of the inventory is to understand cotton’s overall ecological footprint, how that footprint is occurring, and where it might be improved, said Kim Kitchings, senior director of corporate strategy and product metrics for Cotton Incorporated and the team lead for developing the inventory. The National Cotton Council and Cotton Council International are jointly managing the project with Cotton Incorporated, with critical financial support being provided by Monsanto and John Deere.

Data collection was divided into three sections: seed to bale, bale to fabric, and consumer end use. Seed-to-bale data was derived from research conducted in the United States, India, and China, including visits to more than 60 farms and input from 1,300 farmers through a Natural Resource Survey developed by Cotton Incorporated.

Bale-to-fabric research drew on 18 data sets from 17 mills in India, China, Turkey, and Latin America, in addition to existing cut-and-sew data sets. End use data was generated by surveying more than 1,000 consumers through Cotton Incorporated’s Lifestyle Monitor, digging into details such as age of washing machines used, average drying time, water temperature, and type of detergent.

The inventory had to be painstakingly constructed and collected to meet exacting standards to ensure that data would hold up to scrutiny both by the government and the companies served by the cotton supply chain, Kitchings said. In the end, the data will serve to bolster cotton’s sustainability message and identify where improvements can be made to further improve sustainability.