What You Should Know about Organic Cotton and It’s relation with Denim Industry

Jeans are the cornerstone of any wardrobe worth having. People of all ages, styles, professions, and income levels wear them, but as common as the popular pant style is, they’re actually rather harmful to the environment.

  • On average, it takes 1,500 liters (about 396 gallons) of water to produce a single pair of jeans.
  • Along with the massive amount of pesticides used to grow cotton and the energy consumption in factories, jeans are one of the least eco-friendly clothing items to produce.

As consumers become more concerned with how the products they buy affect the environment, brands are continually finding new ways to make jeans more sustainably.

Consumers are beginning to question where and how the products they buy are made. They want assurances that the products they buy are not grown, made or processed in a way that exploits people, exhausts natural resources or harms the environment.

 

Companies that track and monitor their cotton supply chain are, in effect, insuring against future damage to their brand if human or ecological abuses are discovered to have occurred somewhere along the chain.

Companies that have a corporate social responsibility policy in place but don’t monitor their raw materials prior to the mill or spinner are taking, at best, a partial look at the supply chain and leaving themselves vulnerable to negative press, brand damage, lost sales and potential litigation.

Cotton is the building block of all denim and we can’t talk about sustainability without a deep understanding of the state of cotton. That is why it is crucial to know where and how your cotton was grown.

 

According to the information from the International Cotton Advisory Committee, the association for countries that produce, consume and trade cotton, top 10 cotton producers of 2019/2020 are: China, India, USA, Brazil, Pakistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Australia, Mexico and Greece.

The largest percentage of organic cultivation compared to overall cotton production can be found in India and Turkey.

During the panels by  Kingpins Show F/W 2020, we were introduced with sustainable denim producers from these countries. Turkey, especially  for  providing high amount of organic fabric and its central  position in Europe, is the favorite location for brands and retailers. CALIK DENIM, taking responsibility for blue; ORTA ANADOLU, with ecological foot print; and A14 DENIM with their sustainability manifesto are Turkish emerging sustainable denim brands relying on organic cotton, recycling/upcycling and supply chain transpenrency.

CALIK DENIM

A14 DENIM

ORTA ANADOLU DENIM