Thanks to a coordinated voice from natural fibre industries via the Make the Label Count campaign, the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) tool in the European Union will be reviewed. This is great news and a win for cotton and other natural fibre industries who have long argued the current tools unfairly favour synthetics over natural fibres.
Campaign advocates Elisabeth van Delden and Dalena White this week reported to members that MTLC is making solid progress, and has connected natural fibre organisations across the world like never before against a common competitor.
The review of PEF provides a real opportunity to have natural fibres like cotton treated more fairly in this life cycle assessment methodology that currently favours synthetics, with the review commencing this year. The tool supports a number of new pieces of legislation that make up the EU Green Deal and may affect cotton’s market access without key changes.
Cotton Australia, a foundation member of Make the Label Count, will continue to support efforts to provide research, facts and ground truthing so that PEF measures the impacts that will make a difference, and the EU legislation achieves what it has set out to without disadvantaging farmers globally.
May 2025