For the past decade or so, “sustainability” has dominated narratives across every industry. “Few industries tout their sustainability credentials more forcefully than the fashion industry,” said Kenneth Pucker, adjunct professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. “Products ranging from swimsuits to wedding dresses are marketed as carbon positive, organic, or vegan … dot retail shelves.”
To reflect these narratives in real-world products, fashion brands need to use sustainable natural fibers. None more so than cotton, which “is the most extensively used natural fiber,” according to Study34, a U.K.-based boutique garment producer and retailer. Growing cotton requires a lot of water, pesticides and soil nutrients.
Adopting sustainable cotton cultivation practices should further solidify Egypt’s status as a major cotton supplier to top-tier fashion houses. According to Globy, a business-to-business marketplace, “When it comes to premium cotton, Egypt is often at the top of the list.”
Embracing those practices should attract FDI in eco-friendly textile agriculture. “For the fashion industry, which relies heavily on cotton crops for … t-shirts and jeans … switching to suppliers who use regenerative practices is one way the sector can start to have a positive impact on the planet,” according to a white paper from VML, an agriculture R&D center.
Cottonland
During the last harvest season, Egypt was the second biggest grower of high-quality long-staple cotton after the United States, according to the World Long Staple Market report published by the Cotton Egypt Association.
The World Bank said Egypt is one of the “dozen countries” that can grow the top-quality extra-long staple cotton, “an important textile raw material used in spinning high-quality cotton yarns.”
In August, the government said local growers would introduce two high-quality long-strand cotton varieties in the 2025 cultivation season, following a successful trial crop harvest in 2024.
However, Egypt faces difficulties increasing harvest volumes as local farmers use conventional cultivation and harvesting techniques. “Cotton R&D in Egypt focused on the development of strains of cotton but did not bother to develop the cotton harvest mechanization,” noted local think tank Yomken. “Cotton is still harvested manually.”
These methods also make cotton cultivation increasingly unfeasible. “Conventional cotton farming leads to soil degradation due to intensive use of pesticides and contributes to climate irregularities,” noted Mariana Gatti, a sustainability strategist at FarFarm, a supply chain consultancy, during the Regenerative Agriculture Summit Europe in September. “With the environmental damage comes water contamination, land [deterioration], income loss, and a rural exodus.”
Regenerative agriculture
Fashion Revolution, a global activism nonprofit organization, said regenerative agriculture is “all about working in harmony with nature using indigenous ecological knowledge.” Some of its techniques include crop rotation, where farmers plant various crops throughout the calendar year to reduce depletion of soil nutrients. Regenerative farming also includes growing soil-protecting and nourishing crops between or alongside nutrient-depleting ones, such as cotton.
Regenerative farming also requires farmers to avoid using agricultural machinery to overturn arable land in preparation for crop cultivation. Lastly, farm owners should use natural composites over chemical alternatives.
In his book “Climate: a New Story,” Charles Eisenstein stressed, “Regenerative agriculture represents more than a shift of practices. It is also a shift in paradigm and our basic relationship with nature.”
In a research note, the World Economic Forum said adopting correct regenerative farming practices “puts farmers at the center … increasing crop yields and turning farmland and pastures into carbon sinks … optimizing the use of nitrogen-based fertilizers and rethinking global and local supply chains to be more sustainable [and] reduce waste.”
Proof of regeneration
Elizabeth Joy, founder of Conscious Life and Style, a fashion platform, stressed, “As with any green or green-adjacent term in the sustainable fashion space, there is inevitably going to be greenwashing,” where a producer falsely claims to be using eco-friendly techniques or exaggerates emission reductions.
To prove garments aren’t greenwashed, “some brands … use regenerative fashion to provide greater traceability with a ‘farm-to-closet’ concept, in the same way the good industry has done,” noted Fashion Revolution, “the idea being that customers can trace their garments back to the farm that grew the material.”
However, traceability may not be enough. Joy stressed that fashion houses and farmers need to obtain international certification to prove their regeneration credentials. “The leader in regenerative fashion and fibers is Fibershed, a nonprofit” in the United States, she said.
In addition to providing certifications, Fibershed has a “large network of farmers, ranchers, land managers, ecologists, mill operators” and others in the fashion supply chain “to advance regenerative and regional fiber systems.”
Farmers seeking certification from Fibershed can enroll in its Climate Beneficial program. According to the website, it offers “a holistic approach to farming that aims to support whole farm health in order to rebalance the carbon cycle, improve soil health, protect watersheds, support local biodiversity and contribute to resilient producer livelihoods.”
Another certificate is the Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) accreditation, regulated by the Regenerative Organic Alliance, a nonprofit. It verifies farms, ranches, brands and products. ROC’s framework pillars are soil health [and] land management, animal welfare, and farmer [and] worker fairness.”
Joy noted those seeking ROC certification “must already hold a [U.S. Department of Agriculture] organic certificate or equivalent international organic certification.”
This certification differs from the rest, as “just because a brand is a Land to Market member does not mean that all products meet the [required] standards,” Joy said. “Some of the larger companies may only have the verification on a tiny portion of their products.”
Achieving results
According to COSH!, an online promoter of sustainable fashion brands, scaling regenerative agriculture is seldom due to a “lack of knowledge or pioneers, but rather a lack of profitability.”
That is despite the value of regeneration evident in lower farming expenditures and exposure to ecological disasters. “The positive impact of regenerative practices needs to be much better articulated and priced because it exists,” Milena Leszkowicz-Weizman, Communication Strategy and Narratives for Better Business, a consultancy, told COSH!
Farmers can’t easily adopt regenerative farming practices without external support. “Scaling regenerative agriculture will require the right incentives [from government and fashion brands] for farmers since many of them [already] rely on subsidies,” said VML’s paper. “Pioneering companies like Kering-owned Gucci are looking to make a more meaningful impact on climate change by injecting financial investment into the [regeneration] industry.”
Another way to secure funding is via the Regenerative Fund for Nature, created in 2021 “to convert a million hectares of land that produce materials for the fashion industry from regular farmlands to regenerative agriculture within five years,” VML said.
Ultimately, governance and transparency are indispensable for regenerative farming to yield results. ”The focus should not only be on minimizing negative impacts, but on contributing positively to the regeneration of ecosystems and the well-being of communities involved in production,” COSH! said. “Only this way can the trend toward regenerative agriculture become more than just a marketing tool … and contribute to real change.”
This article first appeared in March’s print edition of Business Monthly.
