- Home
- News Stories
- Australian Cotton Sustainability Reference Group (ACSRG) - November 2024
Australian Cotton Sustainability Reference Group (ACSRG) - November 2024
The Australian Cotton Sustainability Reference Group (ACSRG) was established in 2021 to improve how the cotton industry engages with stakeholders. It provides a formal way for the industry to better understand stakeholder expectations, discuss its sustainability efforts, and receive feedback from a diverse group of experts.
The ACSRG includes representatives from key cotton industry groups, such as cotton apparel brands, environmental organisations, First Nations peoples, governments, cotton growers, researchers, and other agricultural sustainability frameworks.
To keep things efficient and reduce emissions, the ACSRG has opted for online meetings every six months.
November 2024 meeting
ACSRG members were presented information on some of the Australian cotton industry’s work to collaborate across industries and along the value chain to accelerate sustainability action for impact and to reduce duplication and inconsistency, these included:
- An update on work to revamp the cotton sustainability data framework
- An update on work with Australian Agriculture Sustainability Framework to support harmonisation of workplace and biodiversity indicators across Australian agriculture sustainability frameworks
- An overview of work with Queensland Department of Primary Industries to apply natural and social capital assessments to industry scale data
- An introduction of a new concept to coordinate regional scale natural capital action.
Roundtable discussion topics
Recent Nature Positive Summit and biodiversity COPs
- It was noted that common themes in these global forums was awareness of the need to finance natural capital and the need for landscape-scale coordination. It was also noted the closing address of the Nature Positive Summit in Sydney called out Australia’s network of 54 regional natural resource management organisations (under the NRM Regions Australia umbrella) – the only country in the world with such an asset.
- All of these themes are addressed by the regional coordination model advocated by the cotton industry.
Workplace indicators
- Cotton Australia highlighted confidential research undertaken by Better Cotton that highlighted that the cotton industry in Australia has a low risk of human rights breaches,
- It was noted Cotton Australia and CRDC are looking to commission research into value chain human rights and modern slavery. The need for a whole-of-agriculture approach to coordinate on data collection to provide evidence of this to customers and investors was emphasised.
- It was noted in chat that we need to be able to capture child labour on farm - identify the difference between helping mum and dad and what constitutes work.
ACSRG member questions
Industry presented on its work to accelerate harmonisation of indicators - how far are we away from integration with other agricultural industries reporting frameworks?
- Summary answer: this remains a work in progress – agreement on some topics is closer than others.
Are we looking at using some of the new technologies available to make measurements easier, like satellite imagery/mapping, remote sensing and earth observations etc?
- Summary answer: Yes, absolutely. And looking to do so in collaboration with independent third parties like NRM Regions Australia, and the Commonwealth’s Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN).
What’s the role of myBMP in helping to deliver the sustainability objectives outlined?
- myBMP is practice-based, and best practice (level 2) and aspirational (level 3) practices within the various modules are regularly reviewed for alignment to targeted outcomes
- Industry is reviewing its approach to demonstrating its sustainability credentials to ensure there is an appropriate focus on both practice adoption and impact metrics. This includes a review of the myBMP program and collection of sustainability data to feed into the cotton industry data platform being developed by Cotton Research and Development Corporation to replace grower surveys with a process to collect data from every field that grows cotton.
Will this data will feed into the Textile Exchange preferred fibre matrix, as well as the Higg MSI?
- Yes.
The slides refer to being able to demonstrate regenerative agriculture outcomes, how does it do this?
- Summary answer: The revamped sustainability data framework aims to identify the most important extent, condition, impact and dependency indictors . It aims to collect data on these measures once and use it for multiple purposes, including tracking changes in natural, social, and economic capital outcomes. That includes being able to measure changes in natural, social and economic capital outcomes.
- There is no agreed way to measure or define regenerative agriculture. The cotton industry has previously shared with the ACSRG a definition based on measurable changes to natural, social and economic capital relevant to the natural complexity and variation of each farm. The revamped data framework allows for these outcomes to be measured; indicators have been mapped to the RegenAgri standard, as an example.
- This approach shows how measuring the right data once can be used for multiple purposes – as well as having data aligned to Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), Science Based Targets for Nature (SBTN), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and other reporting frameworks, it also allows users to get data on regenerative outcomes without having to spend time and money sourcing a whole new regenerative dataset.
- It was also noted the industry is investing in research to further define regenerative agriculture, and is engaging with Better Cotton, Textile Exchange and other stakeholders on its work.
Are corporates looking at SBTN and TNFD? How likely are these to actually be adopted?
- Responses from two brands: one is following the TNFD in line with European market drivers and aware of but not yet using SBTN for nature targets; the other uses GRI as a standard to be interoperable with TNFD.
