In sourcing Australian cotton for your products, you are choosing high quality, contamination free cotton fibre, produced with the highest environmental and social standards. You may also choose to label your products with the Australian Cotton Mark(s). But how do you ensure the cotton in your products is actually Australian?
Cotton Australia places the onus around traceability of Australian cotton on the brands, retailers and manufacturers making the claim, and also requires traceability evidence as part of the Application to Use the Australian Cotton Mark(s). The processes used to establish traceability for Australian cotton vary between brands, but there are a number of common elements.
Australia can trace a bale of cotton back to the field in which it was grown, but beyond the spinning mill traceability for Australian cotton becomes more complex as the fibre is often blended with cotton from other countries. While Cotton Australia can assist with traceability from the farm to the spinning mill, it’s the brand’s responsibility to establish the traceability for Australian cotton supply chains from product back to country of origin.
Cotton Australia has developed a guide which is designed as a starting point for brands and retailers on how to go about supporting claims in relation to Australian cotton. It is hoped that it will help brands:
- Ask the right questions.
- Understand where, what and how evidence could be collected to support provenance claims.
- Determine what types of checks and balances could be implemented at the different stages of the manufacturing process.
