Ninety-nine percent of farmers enrolled in CottonConnect programmes have adopted regenerative practices, the social enterprise's CEO Alison Ward said ahead of World Cotton Day on 7 October, arguing that the cotton sector's next test is proving impact rather than making claims.

Ward, whose organisation works directly with growers across sourcing regions, framed climate volatility as a present commercial risk for brands and suppliers, not a future one. "Climate volatility is no longer a future risk. It is already reshaping how and where cotton is grown," she told Sourcing Journal.

Her comments speak directly to raw-material buyers assessing long-term sourcing security in tier 4 of the supply chain.

What does the climate data show?

Research from the Cotton 2040 initiative, cited by Ward, projects that by the 2040s:

• Half of the world's cotton-growing regions could face high or very high exposure to at least one climate hazard.
• Seventy-five percent could experience increased heat stress.

Growers already report erratic rainfall, prolonged droughts, floods, extreme heat and shifting growing seasons. For brands, this translates into uncertainty around supply, prices and long-term sourcing security, Ward said.

Why is the living wage gap a compliance issue?

CottonConnect ran a Living Wage pilot with a cotton gin in Gujarat, India, that found workers earning roughly 30 to 35 percent below a living wage benchmark — a gap that often stays hidden at the ginning tier.

The pilot went beyond wages to address food security, healthcare, education and access to services. Through targeted interventions, CottonConnect reduced the living wage gap by 44 percent for daily wage workers and 47 percent for salaried employees.

Ward's wider point: due diligence obligations now reach deep into cotton value chains. The EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) is accelerating demand for verifiable information on environmental and human rights risks, she said, and the industry has moved from understanding supply chains to proving what happens within them.

"The pressing question is whether a company can prove that their supply chain is sustainable," Ward said.

Can regenerative claims survive scrutiny?

Ward rejected vague sustainability narratives. As regenerative claims multiply across the sector, she argued, buyers need measurable data on soil health, biodiversity, water use, emissions, yields and profitability.

"The future of regenerative agriculture will be determined not by the claims we make, but by the outcomes we can prove," she said.

She also challenged a persistent assumption about adoption. Farmers, she said, are far more willing to adopt regenerative practices than the industry assumes — provided they can see clear benefits. The 99 percent adoption figure across CottonConnect programmes is her evidence that scale is achievable with practical support and training.

The commercial logic is blunt: if sustainable practices do not make economic sense for farmers, they will not be adopted at scale. Rising input costs, water scarcity, tightening margins and labour constraints mean profitability remains one of the biggest barriers to long-term resilience in many regions.

What about women in the cotton workforce?

More than 264,000 women participated in CottonConnect training during 2024-25. Ward reported that women in these programmes adopted regenerative practices that cut input costs, improved water efficiency and strengthened resilience to climate shocks.

The United Nations has designated 2026 as the International Year of the Woman Farmer, recognising women's role in food security and climate adaptation while noting persistent barriers to land, training and finance. Ward argues women are already driving change on the ground and cannot be treated as secondary in resilience planning.

The sourcing decision this forces

For raw-material sourcing teams, the message is concrete. CSDDD-style regulation makes farm-tier data a compliance requirement, not a marketing asset. Buyers weighing cotton origins should ask suppliers for verified outcome metrics — living wage benchmarks, adoption rates, water and soil data — before committing volumes. The brands best positioned for the 2040s climate exposure scenario, Ward said, are those investing in farming-community resilience now, before disruption reaches the supply chain.