Cotton is the world’s most valuable non-food agricultural product. By the year 2028, the world will be producing more than 30 million tons of cotton annually. That’s enough to make 27 shirts for every individual on Earth. With such a huge amount of cotton being grown and harvested, it seems obvious we should consider its impact on the environment, and yet little is being done to monitor it.
Environmentally speaking, the most critical concern when it comes to cotton cultivation is the consumption of water. More than 230 billion cubic meters of water is used every year in the cultivation and production of cotton. Greenhouse gas emissions are a close second, along with a massive global pesticides use footprint.
Our need for cotton isn’t going anywhere, so how can we clean up our act? Swathes of the public opting to vote with their wallets is one thing, but supply lines are often so blurred in the cotton industry that retailers – fashion brands in particular – could make an impact by taking action. In order to help grow the uptake of environmentally friendly cotton, there is a big opportunity to gain better visibility and traceability over their supply chains. Only then will we be able to reduce the cotton industry’s water, forest and climate footprint and start mitigating the damage.
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Out of sight, out of mind?
One of the apparent gaps in our understanding of sustainable cotton production is that nobody truly knows how much the cotton industry is contributing to deforestation. Despite initiatives such as the Better Cotton Initiative, working to improve traceability of cotton to the source, its environmental impact is not yet quantified. The crop’s distribution and impact on the environment has never been properly mapped or monitored before. For example, the world’s largest amount of sustainably certified Better Cotton is coming from Brazil. In Brazil, cotton is typically planted as the second crop of the season after soybeans have been harvested on the same field. There is a steady stream of news about record levels of deforestation and fires continuing unabated in the Brazilian Amazon. Ever wondered how much deforestation, fire and carbon emission is actually associated with cotton? We’ll never know for sure unless we have the desire and the means to check – and that’s what we appear to have been lacking – until now.
Data has a reputation for being objective, true and unbiased. But data is vulnerable to the exact same bias as those collecting it. That’s one of the reasons we need to be incredibly thorough in our gathering of data, compiling it from all available sources on the ground and from space to get the most accurate picture possible. That’s where Satellite technology comes in.
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Eye in the sky
Satellite data may be one of the most valuable tools in our arsenal when it comes to independently assessing cotton’s impact on deforestation and our impact on the environment in general. Satellite data is now available for all to see online. However, turning that data into useable, actionable insight is another feat entirely – one that requires additional ML and AI-powered technology that can recognize patterns and trends largely unobservable by the human eye. By combining satellite technology with on-the-ground processes, we can slowly start to build an accurate picture of the role cotton cultivation is playing in deforestation.
By interrogating satellite data we can now look at where cotton is being grown and assess things like water stress. Using the Earth’s gravitational field, satellites can detect the level of groundwater and soil moisture at a local level, and look at how those levels have changed over long periods of time. We can also quantify and monitor carbon and greenhouse emissions and flag areas where deforestation problems are developing. Although in use for crops like oil palm and cocoa, this is very much unchartered territory in fashion, and it’s up to brands themselves to look at this data and learn more about how their supply chains might be contributing to the problem. The opportunity for Brazil to demonstrate environmentally sustainable production is significant, traceability systems are already developed and the number of farmers is relatively small, making targeted action efficient.
Cotton production faces challenges with pesticides and water use, and likely – deforestation. But with a combination of satellite technology and corporate responsibility, we can help make our world safer, cleaner and greener.
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