India's Myntra is first e-commerce partner of Better Cotton Initiative

As a part of this collaboration, Myntra’s in-house brands will source the cotton for their apparel through BCI. Motivated to enrich global cotton production and make cotton farming sustainable, BCI aims to make Better Cotton the first choice among manufacturers. In the previous cotton season, BCI, along with its partners, trained over 2.7 million cotton farmers in sustainable practices that utilise lesser chemicals and water to extract maximum efficiency from the farmland. These efforts are towards making global cotton production better for the producers, as well as a healthier future for the sector, Myntra said in a press release.

Through this partnership, Myntra will focus on sourcing 10 percent of its cotton requirements from BCI to begin with and in the next five to seven years aim to increase it to ~50 per cent. To make it easier to adopt, scale and measure, a mass balance model would be followed where Better Cotton can be mixed with conventional cotton through the supply chain. While this means Better Cotton is not physically traceable to end products, BCI Farmers benefit from the demand for Better Cotton in equivalent volumes to those we source. Better Cotton now accounts for 23 per cent of the global cotton production, with BCI’s nearly 70 implementing partners rapidly adapting their practices to evolving circumstances during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“As the leading fashion and lifestyle retailer in the country, we aim to incorporate more environmentally-responsible practices throughout our supply chain. Partnering with the BCI means we will continue the journey to source more sustainable cotton across our entire business, working towards a brighter future for the cotton industry and those whose lives depend on it,” Neetu Jotwani, VP product development and sourcing at Myntra said in a statement.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (GK)