100% Made of Cotton: How to Choose More Eco-Friendly Home Decor Products?

Many people erroneously believe that 100% made of cotton products is the most eco-friendly and healthy choice for decorating one's home. Sounds logical: they are not made of oil, but produced by natural plants processes and are biodegradable by the end of their life. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as that, and here is why. 

Cotton is probably the most commonly used fabric in the world and surely the most dominant one out of all-natural vegan fabrics in terms of its use in home décor industry for curtains, cushions, upholstery, loose covers, bedding, tea-towels, table linen and lampshades. As a consumer, you can make a positive environmental impact by ignoring conventional cotton and opting instead for organic and recycled cotton decor products only. So let's dwell deeper into details.

▂ The least eco-friendly choice: Conventional cotton

If you buy home textile products made of conventional cotton, you actually help the textile industry make the worst environmental impact. Mostly grown in dry environments in developing countries, cotton is an extremely thirsty crop that needs incredible amounts of water:

Producing only 1 kg of cotton in a conventional way requires on average 10 000 litres of water! This would suffice only for a pair of jeans or a couple of deco cushions! This would be enough drinking water for one person for 10 years!

Moreover, in order to protect crops from insects such as boll weevil and mealybugs, farmers still use synthetic pesticides, insecticides and nitrogen and phosphorous-based fertilizers. Although most cotton grown today worldwide is genetically modified to be more resistant to the bollworm pest, which reduces pesticide use, this also leads to such problems as the emergence of “superweeds” which are resistant to standard pesticides and need to be treated with even more toxic pesticides that are harmful to livestock and humans.

A documentary called “The True Cost” depicts the devastating impact of conventional growing of cotton on nature and farmers, including the death of a cotton farmer from a brain tumour in the US and grave birth defects in children of cotton farmers in India.

And last but not least, while growing cotton conventionally, really a lot of waste is being created, not considering bleaching, dyeing and finishing processes, where a long list of chemicals is used, including highly toxic ones. 

So it comes with no surprise that conventional cotton is ranked Class E only by MADE-BY’s Fibre Benchmark (Ranking A-B-C-D-E from the most to the least eco-friendly).

▅ Moderate eco-friendly choice: Better Cotton Initiative & Cotton Made in Africa

▲ Better Cotton Initiative: mainstream price, moderate environmental savings

Sustainable cotton made in India, also known as Better Cotton, is valued through the mass-balance system of the BCI, Better Cotton Initiative. It was established by IKEA, WWF and other partners, aiming to make cotton from more sustainable sources a mainstream practice that does not come at a price premium. The cultivation is slightly more resource-efficient than the conventional one. The Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) aims to protect the environment and ensure a better livelihood for cotton farmers. It prescribes more sustainable use of water and soil and reduced use of agrochemicals. But “Better Cotton” mainly contains conventional - including genetically modified - cotton, so it has nothing to do with organic cotton.

This more sustainable cotton is e.g. actively used by IKEA, H&M, C&A, Zara and other fashion chains and home decor suppliers. These programs are no way perfect because some of them suffer from a lack of funding. If a brand produces all its cotton products from Better Cotton, it reduces its carbon emissions by 19,1% and water usage by 12,6%.

▲ Cotton Made in Africa: mainstream price, moderate environmental savings

Sustainable cotton made in Africa is certified by CmiA, Cotton Made in Africa. CmiA is an initiative by the Hamburg-based foundation Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) that focuses on supporting cotton farmers within sub-Saharan Africa to improve their livelihoods and to promote a more environmentally friendly approach to cotton farming. It obliges producers to use at least 70% of more sustainable cotton on a product level. To grow CmiA, African farmers need to meet a series of minimum requirements. These include not using GMO seeds, practising solely rain-fed cotton cultivation and social requirements such as no child labour. Similar to the BCI, CmiA also aims to produce more sustainable cotton that does not come at a price premium.

If a brand fully switches to Cotton Made in Africa, which is also a more affordable mainstream sustainable cotton, environmental savings are similar to the BCI: carbon emissions are reduced by 20,6% and water usage by 12,6%.

▇ Much more eco-friendly choice: Organic Cotton

Organic cotton farming differs in several key ways to conventional farming. Firstly, it is grown without the usage of synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers. The usage of genetically modified seeds is also banned, meaning that farmers can collect and replant cotton seeds. Growing organic cotton, farmers not only have to reduce carbon emissions and chemicals but also use less water as much of organic cotton is rain-fed. Because of this, MADE-BY’s Fibre Benchmark ranks organic cotton as Class B in terms of its environmental impact.

▲ Organic Cotton by GOTS: premium price, substantial environmental savings

The world's leading processing standard for textiles made from organic fibres is the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS). It defines high-level environmental criteria along the entire supply chain and requires compliance with social criteria as well. Only textile products that contain a minimum of 70% organic fibres can become GOTS certified. All chemical inputs such as dyestuffs and auxiliaries used must meet certain environmental and toxicological criteria.

A company can only then advertise its products with the GOTS label when all production steps are GOTS certified.

According to the SCAP Footprint Calculator, when a brand makes all their cotton products of organic cotton certified by GOTS, it reduces its carbon emissions by 24% and water usage by 52,3%.

Unfortunately, the overall use of organic cotton represents currently LESS THAN 1% of the world’s total annual cotton crop.

The challenge is that as early as 2014, various clothing manufacturers complained that the demand for organic cotton had overtaken the supply. The process of converting from conventional to organic farming takes around three years. For this, however, the farmers need both financial support and training.

▉ The most eco-friendly choice: Recycled cotton

Recycled cotton is also commonly referred to as regenerated cotton, reclaimed cotton, or shoddy. It can be generally defined as converting cotton fabric into cotton fibre that can be reused in textile products. 

Cotton recycling is generated from two primary sources: pre-consumer that includes scraps created by yarn and fabric by-products and post-consumer that includes garments, upholstery, towels, household items to be repurposed. The largest volume of recycled cotton sources is produced through pre-consumer waste, such as cutting scraps. Post-consumer waste is more difficult to sort through due to colour shades, fabric blends and is much more labour-intensive.

According to MADE-BY's Fibre Benchmark, recycled cotton as such gets the highest possible eco-ranking, Class A. However, the challenge is that cotton circularity is limited: as natural fibres, they are shortened and damaged during the shredding process. As their quality reduces, regenerated fibres generally require being mixed with virgin fibres to reach certain quality standards and guarantee product strength and durability. Sometimes, the mix of cotton fibres in the recycling process reaches only 20% of regenerated fibres and 80% of virgin ones! The recycling yarn cost is also generally higher than the virgin one. The risk of contamination by other fibres (stitching, sewing thread, small amounts of spandex) is also much higher for recycled cotton. All this creates obstacles to establishing more recycled cotton supply chains. 

In Europe, also such third-party certifications as Oeko-Tex® Standard 100, bluesign® or the EU Ecolabel are awarded to products and services that have a lower environmental impact than the market average over their entire service life.

Summary

So when you want to decorate your home with décor products made of cotton:

▲ Shop recycled cotton products but check the percentage of regenerated cotton to avoid greenwashing! 20% of regenerated fibres would be too little for positive environmental impact - though still better than none!

▲ Shop 100% organic cotton products made of fabrics that meet third party certification standards to avoid greenwashing. Is it a certified organic product or a non-certified self-label? Or maybe the companies are only talking about "sustainable" cotton? Carefully check labels offline and product characteristics online as brands that produce from organic cotton always inform about their certification! With a GOTS seal, you surely buy most ecological virgin cotton products.

▲ Avoid products of conventional cotton, i.e. products that have labels of “100% cotton” without any further specification of origin or production process,

▲ Avoid decor products of mixed textiles as they are more difficult or even impossible to recycle,

▲ Take good care of your cotton items so that they serve their purpose as long as possible,

▲ Since the main environmental problem in today's textile industry is overproduction - too many items are being made, sold too cheaply, washed too often and used too briefly, buy less, dispose of less, repair more and reuse more!

If the end consumer is not prepared to buy a high-quality home decor product and use it much longer than three cheap ones, then sustainability and environmental protection will not get anywhere.

Header photograph: by Freepik; second photograph: by Racool studio/Freepik