Better Cotton still in denial one year after Fashion Crimes report

• Better Cotton has released an update to the ‘action plan’ it put in place to curb unsustainable and illegal practices in Brazil’s cotton sector following the publication of Earthsight’s Fashion Crimes report
• The plan fails to even acknowledge the reality of land grabbing that has underpinned the sector’s expansion in recent decades at the expense of native ecosystems and the livelihoods of traditional communities
• Better Cotton continues to let large cotton producers and their lobbying association, Abrapa, lead the way in designing and implementing measures to monitor their own conduct
• This disappointing development should come as no surprise to those, including Earthsight, who have for years called on governments to pass and enforce supply chain laws, and not let industry regulate itself

On 13 March 2025, Better Cotton (BC), the world’s largest cotton certification scheme, released an update to its ‘action plan’ to tackle issues highlighted in Earthsight’s Fashion Crimes report.

The measures announced fall well short of the transformative actions required of Better Cotton to foster sustainability and legality in cotton supply chains.

BC continues to ignore the core issue of widespread land grabbing and the profound impacts this has on traditional communities and the environment.

It is also clear Better Cotton remains unconcerned about the shocking conflicts of interest that plague its certification programme in Brazil, which it runs in partnership with cotton lobbyists.

Fashion Crimes, published in April 2024, exposed the links between cotton used by H&M and Zara – the world’s largest fast-fashion brands – and land grabbing, illegal deforestation, violence against traditional communities, and corruption in Brazil’s precious but threatened Cerrado biome.

Earthsight’s investigation focused on massive cotton farms in the state of Bahia, which has lost nearly a quarter of its native Cerrado to industrial agriculture since the 1980s.

We found Zara and H&M had failed to conduct their own due diligence and instead relied on Better Cotton, a scheme that aims to promote sustainable cotton supply chains, but is riddled with holes.

The report also revealed that BC implements its certification programme in Brazil through Abrapa, the national cotton growers’ association. In fact, Better Cotton and Abrapa’s ABR scheme are granted as a single certification to Brazilian cotton farmers.

Shortly after publication of Fashion Crimes, Better Cotton announced the results of an investigation it had commissioned into our findings. Flawed to the point of being almost worthless, this so-called investigation allowed BC to conveniently determine that no farms featured in our report and certified by the scheme had violated any of its sustainability or legality standards.

Yet Better Cotton acknowledged large-scale cotton plantations had profound impacts on the Cerrado and its communities. It also admitted Abrapa’s standards needed to be strengthened to monitor deforestation, rights violations and corruption. Better Cotton committed to working with Abrapa on these issues and implementing wider due diligence on agribusinesses’ conduct beyond the farm level.

In its latest update to these plans, Better Cotton said its consultants had talked to local communities in the Cerrado “to understand their concerns.” Based on this, BC has concluded it needs to work with Abrapa to promote “communication channels between businesses and communities.”

However, Better Cotton fails to even mention the decades-long issue at the heart of traditional communities’ grievances in Bahia: land grabbing.

A large body of research and various legal cases have demonstrated that hundreds of thousands of hectares of cotton and soy plantations controlled by big ag across Bahia – as well as areas agribusinesses are mandated by law to set aside for conservation – sit on top of stolen public lands. Much of this land had been lawfully inhabited by traditional communities for generations.

This process of land grabbing has caused the displacement, marginalisation and loss of livelihoods for dozens of Geraizeiro and Fundo e Fecho de Pasto communities in Bahia. Those who have resisted face violence, harassment, surveillance and criminalisation.

During research for Fashion Crimes, Earthsight visited communities at the forefront of this struggle. Several of them are now fenced off from vast areas once teeming with wildlife and in which they lived in harmony with nature.

But BC disingenuously frames the problem as an “expansion of agribusinesses in the region and how this might escalate tensions with neighbouring communities.” (Earthsight’s emphasis)

BC’s characterisation of the problem makes a mockery of these communities’ long struggle and brushes aside their rightful claims to their traditional lands.

If Better Cotton is serious about protecting traditional communities’ land rights, it must first recognise and seriously engage with the reality of extensive land grabbing.

It must de-certify any agribusinesses which profit from stolen lands, put in place clear and strict standards against land grabbing, and enforce them vigorously.

One positive note from BC’s statement is its plan, long overdue, to conduct due diligence at the company level rather than at farm level only. This could help identify the issues of egregious corruption exposed in Fashion Crimes that Better Cotton has so far overlooked.

But herein lies the second problem with the scheme’s approach. The due diligence framework will be developed in close collaboration with Abrapa, an association that exists to protect and advance the commercial interests of big cotton producers.

Better Cotton’s insistence on partnering with Abrapa highlights the conflicts of interest in its Brazil programme. As a lobbying association, Abrapa is not built to be an impartial arbiter of cotton growers’ sustainability and social practices. Its leadership and consultative teams are made up of executives from large cotton producers.

It is telling that, when contacted by Earthsight ahead of publication of Fashion Crimes, Abrapa threatened to sue us rather than engage with our findings.

Better Cotton is essentially trusting companies to scrutinise and, if needed, penalise their own bad behaviour. It is simply not going to happen.

In comments sent to Earthsight, Better Cotton said it is “not in a position to comment on any ongoing legal proceedings but respect the jurisdiction in Brazil.”

It also stated the renewal of its partnership with Abrapa “was predicated on the successful realignment of their standard system with the Better Cotton Standards System, which is based on our publicly available Benchmarking Policy that follows the ISEAL Sustainability Benchmarking Good Practice Guide.”

The disappointing update to Better Cotton’s plans illustrates a point Earthsight and several other groups have made for years. Voluntary certification schemes heavily shaped by industry do not drive sustainability or legality in global supply chains. Goverments in large consumer markets must legally require companies to conduct their own due diligence, mitigate risks and remedy any adverse impacts from their activities.

Clauses in the EU Deforestation Regulation – which does not regulate cotton – demanding such due diligence and rejecting voluntary schemes are right. The real test though will come once the regulation is applied from December 2025. Enforcement authorities will need to ignore bogus compliance claims linked to weak certification schemes and instead ensure companies are meeting their legal obligations.