The second Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) initiative stated the environmental footprint of cotton produced by CmiA is excellent. As per this assessment, CmiA cotton contributes less to climate change than the global average, with only 1.24 tonne of CO2 equivalents being released per tonne of harvested CmiA cotton fibres versus the significantly higher global benchmark of 1.43 tonne. This is largely because CmiA farmers use relatively little fertilizer and cultivate their cotton under rain-fed conditions only. In addition to protecting surface and ground water, rain-fed agriculture saves energy, since there is no need to power the water pumps otherwise required for irrigation.

In the course of the assessment, CmiA-verified cotton companies from Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, and Zambia completed questionnaires on their practices, and data was collected on factors like average farm size, crop yields, and fertilizer application rates.

In this year’s LCA, the Cotton made in Africa (CmiA) initiative supplemented the usual criteria with a new key parameter: the impact of cotton farming on biodiversity. The results of this assessment are considered to be representative of CmiA cotton as a whole because more than half of all CmiA cotton is produced in the three countries under study.