Should organic cotton be considered "sustainable"?

Over the past few weeks, I have dove headfirst into the sustainable fashion industry. While I would not consider myself to be an expert at this point, there are certain themes that continue to pop up in my extensive research that are worth addressing for discussion, particularly surrounding the word "sustainable."

I just read an article (here) highlighting how H&M is going to be doing a collaboration with Billie Eillish to produce a sustainable line, which sounds great! What is somewhat troubling, however, is how fash fashion brands stretch the meaning of "sustainable" to fit their agenda. I mean, let's be honest here, the world's #1 fast fashion brand isn't likely to pivot 45 degrees and change their business model any time soon.

For many big brands, organic cotton is being used in those sustainable lines and it's not surprising. Not only is it still relatively cheap, it has a similar supply chain to that of their other clothing making it an easy modification. As a result, organic cotton is used in their "sustainable" clothing lines as a way to be more "socially responsible."

By definition sustainable means "able to be maintained at a certain rate or level," which leaves me to question, should organic cotton, one of the most popular "sustainable" resources, and what big brands like H&M & C&A use for their "sustainable" lines, continue to be considered sustainable?

When we look at the water consumption and land required for organic cotton to be harvested, it leaves a big question as to whether organic cotton should be considered sustainable. Compared to more innovative materials like Tencel, organic cotton still uses it uses 5-10x more water (arguably much more even). The number of chemicals needed for the treatment of cotton is also quite extensive, far more than its counterparts, causing near irreparable damage to water systems and soil that it was intended to be better for in the first place.

To take it even further, given the human population growth we currently have today and the amount of land required to grow organic cotton, that high fertile land arguably should be used for growing food and/or livestock. While this may be some time in the future before this becomes a primary concern, that same land will be needed to be used to sustain human life, which takes us back to the definition of sustainability and based on this data, can it be argued that organic cotton consumption cannot be maintained at its current rate?

This can be further elaborated on, specifically on the consideration of sustainable clothing on the three pillars, earth, humans, and animals, but this not a bad place to start!

What are your thoughts?

Edit: Small idea elaboration.

Some data references:

https://textileexchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/TE-Material-Snapshot_Organic-Cotton.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/organic-cotton

https://sourcingjournal.com/topics/raw-materials/report-truth-organic-cotton-impacts-68512/

Submitted February 07, 2020 at 10:55AM by ryan_breakey https://ift.tt/2UwCG0M