University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

152
skills and technologies (Fletcher, Waayer, Vreeland and Grose 1999). We examine
this process from the farming of the cotton crop (in this case in India) to its eventual
sale in clothes’ retailers (in this case in the UK).
We argue that this paper is timely, for, despite increasing awareness of, and interest
in, sustainable methods in both food and yarn production, there is some confusion as
to what organic and organic certification really means 2 . Organic cotton is cotton that
is farmed without the use of synthetic chemicals such as pesticides and fertilizers.
But farming is only one of the stages of garment manufacture, and, as Fletcher and
Waayer (1999) note, ‘production and processing systems which take account of the
environmental, social and economic health of the entire system are important … it is
not enough for a product to be produced organically and then processed in a
conventional polluting system’. A t-shirt made of organic cotton would typically be
labelled as containing certified organic fibre, but certification would not necessarily
apply throughout the whole supply chain. In contrast, a fully-certified organic T-shirt,
has to be certified as organic throughout the whole chain from cotton fields until it is
finally sold in a store (Sanfillipo 2007). Because there is no clear demarcation at
present between the two usages of the term organic on the high street, both types of
garment are sold at a premium over non organic cotton clothes.
In this study we examine the production chain of fully certified organic cotton,
organic cotton, and non-organic cotton t-shirts in order to understand where value is
added in each category. This paper deconstructs the various stages involved in the
production of organic cotton garments and compares the value added at each stage
when compared to a conventional cotton garment. As part of the process we consider
the various drivers of demand for organic cotton.
Industry Background
Cotton was always cultivated organically, like all crops, until the early 20 th century.
However, the demand for ‘cosmetically perfect produce’ (Pretty and Hine 2005) and
higher yields led to the increased use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and
subsequently to genetically modified cotton. After almost sixty years of chemical
enhancement of crops, people started to become aware of the social and
environmental costs of these practices. The first international regulation on pesticides
came into force in 1985 (Pretty and Hine 2005), and in the following years a small
number of ‘organic pioneers’ began to cultivate cotton as a rotational crop on
specialised organic farms, resulting in the birth of ‘organic cotton’ as we know it
today. This led eventually to the accreditation and certification of organic produce
(Ton 2002). In 1992, motivated by environmental awareness and the potential for
environmental consumerism, some apparel designers and companies launched eco-
2 Certification is carried out by independent bodies; there is no one set of regulations and the cost of certification
varies between these bodies, hence it is difficult to work out the precise cost of certification per garment. Typical
costs are $3500 for the first year and $2500 each subsequent year, which includes ten transactions free of charge.
There is no limit on the number of products per transaction as long as they are part of one invoice, therefore
tending to benefit larger batches. Additional certificates can be obtained at a price of $25 per certificate. It has not
been possible to work out the per garment (or per kg) cost of these certifications. The ‘per piece’ calculation
involves very complex and detailed data which were not available despite repeated requests.