BRUSSELS – The Better Cotton Initiative will be looking to align with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) over the next decade. In his opening address at this year’s annual BCI Conference in Belgium, Alan McClay, CEO of the BCI said the organisation is still targeting 30 per cent of global cotton production by 2030, adding: “The question is where we are going after 2020 and we will start the [year long] process of looking at that today. We want to align with the SDGs and we feel there are at least seven to eight of the SDGs we can be a driver towards.”
While the 2020 target of 30 per cent of global production has been on the table for several years, McClay indicated the next 12 months are very much a case of the BCI taking stock as it decides on its future direction beyond 2020, in terms of targets and particular sustainability goals.
Also talking alongside McClay was Brice Lalonde, founder and chairman of the Business and Climate Summit. The presence of Lalonde was a genuine coup for the BCI. He is a former green party leader in France, who ran for Presidency in the country in the Presidential elections in 1981. In 1988 he was named Minister of the Environment, and in 1990 founded the green Ecology Generation party. He was the United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Executive Coordinator of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) from 2010-2012.
Lalonde waxed lyrical about the BCI during an engaging, passionate address. He said: “When I saw the Better Cotton Initiative … I thought this really is the winning model you are looking for. I like the BCI because it is holistic all the issues are included – you have water, livelihoods and so on. It is cost neutral. It is progressive – it is improving all time.”