How Environmental Zeal Backfired on Cotton
June 11, 2025 In the global apparel market, polyester is the preeminent fiber. There was a time, however, when cotton could have made that claim. Not anymore. Many factors explain how cotton lost its position, including price competition, synthetic fiber performance, fashion trends, and changing consumer attitudes.
However, one factor is often overlooked when considering cotton’s diminished market share: environmentalism. Huh? Please hear me out. I support environmentalists and the movement to protect the climate. But, having worked in the cotton industry for decades, I don’t agree with some of the methods used by environmentalists to clean up cotton. They have harmed the cotton industry.
Let me explain. For years, environmentalists have waged a campaign to clean up fashion. They’ve exposed pollution, condemned overproduction, and called out the toxic underbelly of fast fashion. In many ways, they’ve been right to do so. But in their quest to clean up fashion, they may have unintentionally undermined one of our most sustainable materials, cotton.
Sure, cotton has its challenges. It needs lots of water. It relies on pesticides. And it’s been complicit in poor labor conditions across the supply chain. These are legitimate concerns. But in the hands of environmental campaigners, cotton has become more than a problem. It’s become a symbol. And in that symbolic role, it’s been scapegoated, tarred and feathered, stripped of nuance, and sacrificed on the altar of sustainability.
The Rise of Anti-Cotton Rhetoric
In the last 20 years, cotton has become the poster child for what’s wrong with fashion. Reports about water use in cotton farming—particularly the infamous “2,700 liters for one T-shirt” stat—spread like wildfire. Rarely contextualized, such figures created the impression that cotton alone was responsible for environmental degradation on a catastrophic scale.
Activist groups seized on these numbers to push for radical changes in sourcing. Various environmental campaigns routinely positioned conventional cotton as unsustainable, urging brands to adopt alternative materials or shift entirely to organic. Some went so far as to call conventional cotton “the world’s dirtiest crop.”
But here’s the catch: while those campaigns raised awareness, they oversimplified a complex issue. Not all cotton is created equal. Rainfed cotton grown in the U.S. or parts of Africa has a very different water footprint than irrigated cotton in arid parts of India. Yet the campaigns didn’t differentiate. They painted all cotton with the same brush.
In doing so, they misled both consumers and brands. Environmentalists, perhaps unwittingly, fed a binary narrative — cotton bad, synthetic fibers good — that ignored the trade-offs baked into every material.
The Synthetic Displacement
This narrative had commercial consequences. Under pressure from watchdogs and investor ESG mandates, brands pivoted away from conventional cotton. But scaling organic cotton was (and still is) difficult. Yields are lower, certification is costly, and supply is limited. So instead, many brands embraced synthetics, particularly recycled polyester.
This shift was often sold as sustainable progress. In reality, it was more of a PR maneuver than a scientific one. Recycled polyester, usually made from post-consumer PET bottles, may reduce landfill waste, but it does little to solve fashion’s deeper environmental issues. Worse, synthetic fibers shed microplastics, don’t biodegrade, and rely on fossil fuel-based inputs. From an emissions perspective, polyester production is significantly more carbon-intensive than most cotton.
In effect, the environmental movement helped replace a renewable, biodegradable fiber with plastic. And because synthetics are cheaper and easier to scale, they’ve entrenched themselves even further into the fast fashion business model the activists sought to dismantle.
A Price War Cotton Can’t Win
The situation has become even more dire as the global market finds itself awash in cheap synthetics. Massive polyester production, driven by government-supported capacity in China and elsewhere, has created an oversupply that has collapsed prices. Polyester used in apparel is now, by a wide margin, the cheapest fiber on the market. It’s also the most widely used in apparel.
This glut puts cotton at a distinct disadvantage. Even though cotton has made significant gains in water efficiency, pesticide reduction, and traceability, it simply can’t compete on price alone. Under pressure to cut costs in a slowing global economy, retailers and apparel brands increasingly choose the cheaper option, synthetics. The result? Cotton loses further ground, not because it’s inferior, but because it’s structurally priced out.
And this pricing disparity isn’t temporary. Unless global polyester production is curtailed, or tariffs and sustainability regulations shift the balance, cotton will continue to struggle to maintain market share in mass-market apparel.
Collateral Damage in Cotton Communities
The cotton industry, particularly in the Global South, has felt the sting. Smallholder farmers in India, Pakistan, and sub-Saharan Africa have struggled to meet the shifting demands of brands now obsessed with certifications and transparency checklists. Various cotton sustainability programs are designed to help. But compliance costs money. Many producers lack the resources to participate or get left behind in favor of “preferred” suppliers.
Even in the United States, a leader in cotton efficiency and traceability, growers face declining demand from brands now infatuated with low-cost synthetics or bamboo rayon rebranded as sustainable. Some U.S. brands have dropped cotton entirely from new collections, citing environmental concerns that are more emotional than empirical.
Meanwhile, international trade policy hasn’t helped. With cotton losing its public relations war, few governments have rushed to defend it. In some cases, environmental arguments have been weaponized in trade negotiations, creating new barriers for traditional cotton exporters.
Zeal Without Balance
This is where environmentalists deserve criticism, not for raising the alarm, but for ignoring the trade-offs. The fight against climate change and ecological degradation demands urgency, you bet. But it also demands intellectual honesty. Cotton’s water use is real, but context matters. Its pesticide use has dropped dramatically thanks to integrated pest management and biotech advances. And unlike synthetics, cotton breaks down in landfills and oceans alike.
In their zeal, too many activists have overlooked these improvements. They’ve demanded that brands abandon cotton without offering viable, scalable alternatives. They’ve celebrated “sustainable” fibers without vetting their full lifecycle impacts. And they’ve framed cotton as a villain without acknowledging that the textile supply chain is rife with far worse offenders.
The cotton industry isn’t blameless here. It was slow to embrace transparency. It resisted change for too long. But today, much of the industry has mobilized. U.S. growers now use GPS-guided irrigation systems and are subject to strict environmental regulations. Traceability platforms are becoming the norm. And new grower practices, such as regenerative cotton, are pushing the industry toward more sustainable production.
Time to Reframe the Debate
It’s time to stop punishing cotton for past sins while giving synthetics a free pass. The apparel industry needs a materials conversation rooted in data, not dogma. Environmentalists must move past simplistic narratives and work with producers, not just pressure them from the outside.
Cotton has a role to play in a sustainable future. It’s renewable. It’s biodegradable. It can be grown responsibly and ethically. But it needs support from brands, from regulators, and from the very activists who once opposed it.
If the environmental movement truly wants a cleaner, fairer fashion industry, it must reassess how its messages are shaping market outcomes. Sometimes, doing what feels right doesn’t deliver the results you expect. Sometimes, fighting the good fight means pausing to ask: Are we targeting the right problem?
Cotton isn’t perfect. But in trying to fix fashion, the environmental movement may have just made it worse.
Comments and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
Want to hear and learn more? Check out Episode 190 of the Cotton Companion podcast.
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