How people and planet intersect in BCI's regenerative standards system. Tue, October 13, 2026 at 2:00 AM PDT Regenerative farming methods are rooted in history. Although concepts like supporting soil health and protecting biodiversity are not novel, there has been a renewed push for these practices. The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) has long been focused on improving conditions in cotton farming through a combination of environmental and social principles. Now, it is taking this a step further by transitioning to a fully regenerative standards system, meaning all participating farms will commit to practices that actively improve nature. "Sustainability is now the floor, and we're thinking of regenerative as the ambition," said Eva Benavidez Clayton, senior director of demand and engagement at Better Cotton Initiative. "Even though regenerative does not have a universal definition, and there are different interpretations, we see it gaining ground across every major commodity. Many regenerative practices faded during the Green Revolution, but reviving them may be our best shot at reversing decades of degradation." As part of this introduction, BCI has updated its standard's field-level Principles and Criteria and established a new Evidence Framework that will collect and report on data covering nine key areas: crop protection, soil health, water stewardship, fiber quality, smallholder livelihoods, climate change, biodiversity, women's empowerment and decent work. Prioritizing continued progress, the latest version of the standard requires farmers to commit to a continuous improvement plan for three regenerative practices. Since April 1, brands and retailers have been able to set regenerative sourcing targets through BCI in preparation for the new standard's full implementation. By the end of 2027, all BCI producers will have adopted the updated standard and been certified accordingly, allowing brand and retail members to claim regenerative cotton sourcing and incorporate data from BCI into their own sustainability reporting. Here, Benavidez Clayton dives into the reasons behind BCI's regenerative push, why social impact is a critical piece of the puzzle and how brands can get involved. Sourcing Journal: For fashion manufacturers and brands, farms are often out of sight, out of mind. But how is what is happening at the field level impacting the broader industry's footprints? Eva Benavidez Clayton: Your footprint doesn't start in the factory; it starts in the soil. Not all, but much of a cotton garment's environmental impact is decided before the fiber leaves the farm, between water, biodiversity, pesticides and synthetic fertilizer. So, farmers are on the front line of climate change, with droughts, floods, extreme heats; for them, this isn't a 2030 mitigation target - it's adaptation this season to remain viable. They're also running a hard business - there's water, pests, trying to get yields with fewer inputs on margins that often don't work. If the farm isn't resilient, then your supply chain won't be resilient either. Sourcing Journal: Why is BCI in particular set up to deliver a regenerative agriculture campaign at this level? E.B.C.: Nobody else sits between this many farmers and this many brands. Last season, we were working with 1.4 million farmers globally across smallholder, medium and large growers, and we were working with more than 250 brands around the world. We have a global member network on one side, and an unparalleled reach into farming communities on the other, which lets us connect market demand directly to practice change in the field. So we're the bridge that really leverages the ability to drive impact at scale. It's important to remember, though, that scale doesn't mean one size fits all. Practices have to be locally relevant to stick. What works in Pakistan might look different in Brazil, might look different in Cote d'Ivoire, etc. Sourcing Journal: Traceability and visibility are important for any sustainability endeavor, but why is this even more crucial to track and prove regenerative practices? E.B.C.: Regenerative is a claim about outcomes, and if you can't claim an outcome from a farming community, a region or a farm, it's hard to really substantiate that. Without traceability, regenerative is just a nice word on a hang tag. Traceability has been central to our strategy for many years. We launched country of origin traceability in 2023, and we are working towards farm-level traceability in the next two years, so that will be by 2028. In a large farm context, that will be directly back to the farm. In a small farm context, that will be to a grouping of farmers that form a producer unit using the same practices in the same climate. We've really laid the groundwork for fiber-forward traceable, regenerative BCI cotton. Sourcing Journal: Why are social and economic impact critical to the success of regenerative agriculture programs? E.B.C.: You can't regenerate soil on a farm that can't pay its bills. Switching practices costs time and money, and it carries real risk. Yields can dip in the early years, and if the farmer carries that cost alone, adoption stalls or quietly reverses. The uncomfortable truth that we're starting to talk about more is that every time the sector raises the bar, someone pays, and too often it is the farmer. So regenerative has to regenerate livelihoods and communities too, including decent work and supporting the women who do much of the labor in cotton in many contexts. Continuous improvement can't mean moving the goalposts on the people least able to keep chasing them. If farmers and producers are improving their practices, then they should benefit from that. That's why it's really important for retailers and brands to signal through commitments that they're sourcing X percentage of their materials of their cotton regeneratively. That shows that the demand is there, and then the demand signals trickle down. If farmers see that there are customers willing to pay for it and they're willing to pay for the extra work that it takes, then it's a virtuous cycle and we'll continue to have more regenerative cotton grown in the future. Sourcing Journal: What are your key goals for the regenerative campaign in the first year? E.B.C.: Firstly, building awareness among members and stakeholders. We want to get brands to commit to regenerative sourcing targets through BCI. We plan to share data and real stories from the field that evidence the practices that are being implemented and the positive changes that that farming communities are seeing. We want to build momentum so that this becomes a lasting priority, not just a flash in the pan or a campaign cycle. Success is when regenerative stops being a campaign and becomes how the industry sources cotton.

BCI shifts status from 'sustainable' to 'regenerative' Jennifer Marks// Editor in Chief//October 13, 2026 Fast fasts: * BCI now operates as a regenerative standard system, covering over 20% of global cotton production. * BCI adopts stronger regenerative farming requirements for farmers. * BCI acquires Co:Farm technology to simplify field-level data collection. * The shift helps brands and retailers that have set regenerative targets. * BCI's traceability opens the door to product-level claims. Geneva - The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) announced early today that it is now officially operating as a regenerative standard system. BCI's cotton sustainability program encompasses more than 20% of the world's cotton production. The move to a regenerative standard includes stronger requirements for farmers, targeted capacity strengthening and improved impact measurement. At the same time, BCI's traceable offering opens the door to product-level claims, according to the NGO. "As the world's largest cotton sustainability organization, we are uniquely positioned to drive change across the entire cotton supply chain," said Nick Weathrhill, CEO. ""Our transition to a regenerative standard system is about unlocking a triple win for nature, farmers and industry." Over the past year, BCI updated it criteria, which now require BCI farmers to adopt locally regenerative farming practices and set continuous improvement targets across key environmental and social indicators. Along the way, the organization commissioned a third-party assessment by SureHarvest to evaluate BCI's alignment with other regenerative agricultural programs such as RegenAgri, REEL, Textile Exchange, and others. In addition, BCI has acquired the team and technology behind Co:Farm from Materra to strengthen its digital infrastructure. The platform enables more efficient field-level data collection and reduces administrative burdens for growers and implementing partners. "We are investing in the infrastructure needed to support regenerative agriculture and the transparency the market increasingly expects," said Alia Malik, BCI's chief commercial officer. "Very few organizations can take an innovation proven with 10,000 farmers and scale it across one of the world's largest farmer networks." As part of its announcement, BCI is releasing its Roadmap to a Regenerative Future today at the Textile Exchange Conference in Vancouver, Canada. It will also host a breakout session - Cotton Farmer Voices: Investing in a Regenerative Future - on Thursday, Oct. 15 from 2:00-4:30pm PDT.

Better Cotton Initiative becomes a regenerative standards system. Jasmin Malik Chua Mon, October 12, 2026 at 5:11 PM PDT It's official: The Better Cotton Initiative, better known as BCI, announced Tuesday that it is now operating as a regenerative standards system, a move it says will unlock a "triple win" for nature, farmers and industry as it promotes healthier soils, more resilient ecosystems and stronger farmer livelihoods. The pivot from a nonprofit, multi-stakeholder organization to an external certification system comes as the fashion industry increasingly looks to regenerative cotton to anchor its sustainable sourcing, the world's largest cotton sustainability organization said. The overhaul is intended to help "bridge the gap" between corporate ambitions and field-level realities by ensuring progress is powered by "genuine partnerships" with farmers and backed by verifiable results, BCI added. "When nature thrives, farmers thrive," Nick Weatherill, CEO of BCI, said in a statement. "And when retailers and brands support those conditions through their sourcing and investment, they help build more resilient supply chains and future-proof the supply of cotton." Regenerative agriculture is sometimes hailed as "organic plus," though that can be a reductive characterization. While organic cotton seeks to avoid environmental harm by banning synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, regenerative cotton focuses on outcomes such as rebuilding soil health, restoring biodiversity, capturing carbon and retaining water. Because "regenerative" lacks a single legal definition or regulatory enforcement, conventional farms can adopt regenerative practices, say, by planting cover crops and practicing no-till farming while still spraying synthetic pesticides and using GMO seeds. At the same time, proponents say regenerative agriculture gives farmers far more flexibility than standard organic farming. BCI's restructuring has been underway behind the scenes for the past two years. It includes updates to the organization's principles and criteria that strengthen the existing requirement for farmers to demonstrate continuous improvement by placing greater emphasis on regenerative agriculture when setting and meeting targets. Much like its original standard, which covers more than one-fifth of cotton grown worldwide, BCI's new regenerative standards system doesn't outright ban synthetic pesticides or chemical fertilizers, though farmers must phase out the most dangerous so-called highly hazardous pesticides over time. It also doubles down on integrated pest management, alongside mandatory soil health, cover cropping and biodiversity measures. Together with those changes, BCI has revamped its investment, capacity strengthening, assurance and impact measurement activities to prioritize regenerative farming, bolstering what it says is its ability to "deliver regenerative outcomes." The timing of the shift also coincides with mounting public scrutiny of BCI's certification credibility, most notably from watchdog group Earthsight's April 2024 exposé, which criticized the organization for certifying cotton linked to illegal deforestation, land-grabbing and environmental violations in Brazil's Cerrado region. That two of the biggest high-street brands, H&M and Zara, were implicated made the issue - and the headlines - more difficult to ignore. BCI, then known as Better Cotton before returning to its original name, said at the time that while a third-party audit found no breach of its standards at the investigated farms, it planned to expand its due diligence requirements to improve oversight and encourage greater collaboration across commodity stakeholder groups, standards bodies and certification schemes to better tackle cotton production's social and environmental impacts. "We welcome the scrutiny of organizations such as Earthsight as they help to shine a spotlight on areas where both farm and regulatory oversight need to improve," Alan McClay, then-CEO of Better Cotton, said in the aftermath. "Better Cotton's mission is to promote more sustainable agricultural practices globally, helping cotton communities survive and thrive while protecting and restoring the environment." Now, many of those efforts appear to be coming together. Among BCI's biggest moves is the acquisition of the team and technology behind Co:Farm from agritech company Materra, a deal that BCI says will create a digital infrastructure to simplify and speed up field-level data collection while reducing the administrative burden on growers and implementing partners. "Co:Farm is more than a technology acquisition," Alia Malik, chief commercial officer at BCI, said in a statement. "We are investing in the infrastructure needed to support regenerative agriculture and the transparency the market increasingly expects. Very few organizations can take an innovation proven with 10,000 farmers and scale it across one of the world's largest farmer networks. Combining BCI's scale and reach with Co:Farm's technology and expertise will help deliver the data, visibility and assurance needed to translate regenerative ambition into impact." To inform its transition, BCI commissioned a third-party review by SureHarvest, an agricultural consulting and software firm, which benchmarked BCI's existing framework against leading standards from RegenAgri, REEL, Textile Exchange and others to assess alignment. SureHarvest found that BCI's standard "already aligned well with widely recognized regenerative practices and outcomes, particularly within Principles 2 (Natural Resources), 3 (Crop Protection), 5 (Decent Work), and 6 (Sustainable Livelihoods)." Using those findings, BCI closed the remaining gaps and refined its principles and criteria ahead of version 3.2, which took effect in April. Meanwhile, one example of its regenerative approach is already in action, BCI said. Launched with H&M in India in 2025, the Gujarat Regenerative Agriculture Project is training and supporting more than 12,000 farmers in the western Indian state as they adopt or expand regenerative practices. To date, more than 1,760 growers have received incentive payments, while 1,700 metric tons of traceable BCI lint cotton have been linked to H&M's supply chain. BCI will formally launch its regenerative standards system at this week's Textile Exchange Conference in Vancouver, where it will also host sessions on regenerative agriculture, industry readiness and the path to scale. On World Cotton Day on Wednesday, the organization released its first impact report in five years, finding that a majority of farmers had reduced synthetic nitrogen use, pesticide active ingredients, carbon footprint and irrigation water. At the same time, it flagged persistent challenges, including continued hazardous pesticide use in Brazil - the country supplying the largest single share of BCI cotton - and on large industrial farms; uneven economic benefits that vary widely by country; and the ongoing transition away from its traditional mass balance system toward its newly implemented physical traceability standards.