Materials that matter:
Regenerative Organic Certified® Cotton
Championed by COS, cultivated the way Mother Nature intended: meet today’s highest organic standard fibre that puts back what it takes from the soil.
From an everyday T-shirt to your favourite pair of jeans, cotton is a mainstay of our wardrobes. Now, thanks to a new holistic agricultural system producing Regenerative Organic Certified® Cotton (or ROC for short), fashion's most-used thread can be cultivated more responsibly and to a much higher standard.
By investing to support farms in India working towards the highest organic standard, COS is creating a more sustainable and reliable supply of this wonder fibre for future collections – and your wardrobe...
Learn more about what makes ROC special below...
WHAT IS REGENERATIVE ORGANIC CERTIFIED® COTTON?
Regenerative organic certified agriculture is a holistic approach of farming cotton to develop more resilient agriculture systems with a focus on environmental as well as social welfare. Regenerative Organic Certified® is built on three pillars: Soil Health & Land Management, Animal Welfare, and Social Fairness, with required criteria for each.
SOIL HEALTH & LAND MANAGEMENT
Increase soil organic matter over time. Healthy soil traps carbon, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and could help trap more than conventional agriculture.
ANIMAL WELFARE
Ensure the ethical and humane treatment of animals with a focus on pasture-based systems, which allows the renewal of soil and plant life before the next grazing session.
SOCIAL FAIRNESS
Provide fair conditions and healthcare for all farmers and workers and introduce additional income through biodiverse planting.
The core idea of regenerative organic certified agriculture is to establish a farm management system that works in harmony with nature to improve quality of life for every creature involved in the ecosystem. Regenerative farming adopts traditional agricultural practices to flourish biodiversity and restore the health of soil and climate.
WHY REGENERATIVE ORGANIC CERTIFIED® COTTON?
‘REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE INCREASES THE SOIL ORGANIC MATTER OVER TIME AND SEQUESTERS CARBON BACK INTO THE SOIL, WHICH COULD HELP MITIGATE CLIMATE CHANGE AND DRIVE TOWARDS OUR NET POSITIVE VISION FOR 2040.’
GLOBAL MATERIAL INNOVATIONS & STRATEGY TEAM, H&M GROUP
HOW IS IT CERTIFIED?
Regenerative Organic Certified® (ROC) is overseen by Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA) to ensure food, fibre, and personal care ingredients meet the highest standard for organic agriculture, with stringent compliance requirements for soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness at the farms to certify the crop output. ROC has three levels: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Each requires a different number and scope of regenerative organic practices used. Bronze represents the beginning level and Gold represents the highest achievable level in regenerative organic production.
OUR INITIATIVE
The initial pilot of the Regenerative Organic Certified® program began in 2022 at one of the cotton farms in Madhya Pradesh, India, by onboarding 1000+ farmers with a total 400+ hectares of land. The farm adopted regenerative practices like organic bio inputs, cover cropping, intercropping and low soil tillage with compliance on social fairness and animal welfare benchmarks to achieve Bronze level certification in the first year of onboarding.
With a long-term commitment to Regenerative Organic Certified® cotton farming, COS aims to scale its certification to Silver and Gold levels in the future, with continuous improvement in existing organic farm management systems.
Surta Bai, one of the lead Regenerative Organic Certified® farmers, shares her experience and long-term vision for adopting Regenerative agriculture on her 2.5 Acres of land. ‘It’s our duty that the land we use for growing cotton today shall remain healthy for our future generations’, she says. ‘I believe by investing in Regenerative agricultural practices on my hereditary land, I can secure and enhance its soil health.’
