IKEA wants all its cotton to adhere to Better Cotton Initiative guidelines by the end of 2015, according to a 2010 Sustainability Report released Wednesday. The multi-stakeholder organization, which counts the Swedish furnishings giant as a founding member, is currently evaluating a set of draft criteria in West Africa, Brazil, Pakistan, and India, after which it will take responsibility for verifying compliance at the farm level. From chemical consumption to forced child labor, cotton’s importance as a raw material belies its social and environmental dark sides, admits the flat-pack maestro. “IKEA works to reduce its need for cotton, but it is not realistic to believe that all cotton can be replaced with alternative materials,” it says. “This is why we work actively to increase the availability of more sustainable cotton.”
Read more: click here for the Ecouterre article
