What is the OCRT?
The Organic Cotton Round Table (OCRT) is a global stakeholder platform that supports and brings together the organic cotton community to be inspired, mobilized, and equipped to act.
The OCRT has on-going Task Forces for Business Models, Seed & Soils, and Consumer Engagement, as well as an Innovation Award that seeks out and celebrates new ideas in organic cotton.
Each year, the OCRT holds a Global in-person meeting at Textile Exchange’s annual Textile Sustainability Conference, as well as, more recently, a number of Regional OCRTs through the year.
Watch the video above to get a feel for what the OCRT is all about, then dive deeper through our Out of the Box interviews with some of the industry’s most inspiring thinkers.
2019 meetings
Previous meetings
Regional OCRT China
March 14, 2019
Responding to industry demand, CottonConnect and Textile Exchange brought together leading industry professionals on March 14, 2019, for an event specifically focused on organic cotton demand and supply in China.
Find out more
Global OCRT Vancouver
October 15-18, 2019
The 2019 Global OCRT will be held during Textile Exchange's annual Textile Sustainability Conference, this year being held in Vancouver, October 15-18.
More details coming soon.
Watch this space!
WHAT DOES THE OCRT DO?
OCRT TASK FORCES
The OCRT has three Task Forces that focus on the key challenges to sector stability and sustainable growth. Under these Task Forces, the OCRT has already identified needs for a number of initiatives and has either catalysed, or been an incubator for, their development. Such initiatives include the Organic Cotton Accelerator, Chetna Coalition, a dedicated microsite for organic cotton and an inventory of non-GMO seed availability.
Business Models Task Force
Success for all depends upon re-imagining and re-engineering supply chains to improve business security for growers and for organic to scale up. Incubating new ways of working, driving best practice, and ensuring product integrity is integral to improved business models and the resilience of the sector.
Seed and Soils Task Force
Access to good quality non-GMO seed is necessary to meet the needs of the organic agricultural standard whilst delivering on fiber quality and meeting industry specifications. Productivity in organic depend upon healthy fertile soil as well as good quality seed. Avoiding and addressing contamination from GMO seed is also key to the success of organic cotton.
Consumer Engagement Task Force
The consumer is part of the organic cotton value chain. Educating and driving consumer demand are part of the business model. Brands and retailers of organic cotton need to see a return on investment. They invest significantly in product placement and talk directly to their customer, so consumer engagement is critical.
HISTORY OF THE OCRT
There is still much to do to get to the next stage of transforming organic cotton supply chains into organic cotton communities. Interestingly, the situation of declining production and barriers to growth, coupled with the energy and enthusiasm for transforming the cotton sector, in many ways provides the ideal breeding ground for this transformation!
In 2015, the OCRT launched the Innovation Lab, a celebration of new ideas in organic cotton, in collaboration with Change Agency and Luminous Energy.
During the first three years of life (2012-2014), the focus of the OCRT has been an annual in-person meeting of organic cotton producers, manufacturers, brands, retailers and support organizations. Following the inaugural meeting of the OCRT in Hong Kong in 2012, the second annual meeting was held in Istanbul in 2013, the third in Portland in 2014, the forth in Mumbai in 2015, the fifth in Hamburg in 2016, the sixth in Washington D.C, and the seventh meeting was held in Milan in October 2018.
Each year interest has grown and in 2014 the OCRT was able to raise funds to the seed task force and support the incubation of the Organic Cotton Accelerator (OCA) and “ChetCo” (a coalition of brands working with Chetna, an organic cotton producer group); a promising sign that the OCRT can catalyze action pre-competitively. TE decided to invest resources in developing a microsite, which is currently in beta phase.
In 2012, after many years of steady growth, production of organic cotton began to decline. Yet demand for organic cotton fiber continued to grow. In response to the decline, Textile Exchange declared a Call to Action and initiated the Organic Cotton Round Table (OCRT). The inaugural meeting of the OCRT was held as a pre-conference event to the Textile Exchange annual conference in Hong Kong in November of the same year.
A diagnosis of the reasons behind the drop in production – and much stakeholder enquiry – resulted in the OCRT arriving at three main areas of focus. Task forces for “Business Models”, “Seed & Soils”, and “Consumer Engagement” were created with small advisory groups working to develop strategies for action.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
Talk To Us
Tell us what you think and share your ideas!
Join Our Annual OCRT Meetings
Participate in our face-to-face meetings and help shape the future of sustainability in fiber production.
Sign Up To Our Task Forces
Together we can build a more sustainable and rewarding business for the organic cotton sector.
Quick Links
About organic cotton
Organic cotton is cotton that is produced and certified to organic agricultural standards.
Learn more2018 Market reports
The 2018 Preferred Fiber & Materials Market Report and the Organic Cotton Market Report are now available.
Read moreBenchmark
The Corporate Fiber & Materials Benchmark helps companies measure, manage and integrate a preferred fiber & material strategy.
Read moreSUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENT
A framework for assessing the environmental, social & economic impacts of organic cotton agriculture.
Learn moreGlossary
contact us
For more information, don’t hesitate to contact the team at: OCRT@textileexchange.org