Sustainable Design Town Hall: Sustainable Cotton Project

As mentioned in a previous post, a group of about 20 or so designers and educators recently met at a Designers Accord town hall meeting in San Francisco to explore the subject of sustainable design and exchange ideas. This is the first in a short series of posts in which I'll continue the conversation with the other presenters there about how people can design messaging that drives measurable, ground-level change.

Lynda Grose and the Sustainable Cotton Project

California cotton used 5,849,172 pounds of chemicals in 2005, many of which are known to be significantly toxic to air, water, soil and people. Lynda Grose, fashion designer and associate professor at CCA, is working with the Sustainable Cotton Project to reduce the amount of chemicals used on California cotton crops. Her presentation offered an overview of the subject, but also explored some of the inherent challenges in communicating complex or unintuitive sustainability initiatives.

What exactly is cleaner cotton?

Cleaner cotton is the term used for the crop produced by farmers enrolled in SCP's BASIC program. BASIC (Biological Agricultural Systems in Cotton) is a farmer-to-farmer information-sharing program throughout California's Central Valley that "enables conventional farmers to adopt organic and other environmentally preferable (biologically-based Integrated Pest Management) farming techniques." It's been remarkably successful in its eight years of existence: according to an independent analysis, BASIC growers "spray up to 73% less of the most toxic insecticides and miticides used in cotton" compared to conventional growers in their area.

Grose points out, however, that cleaner cotton is not the same as organic cotton, which uses no synthetic pesticides. So it must not be as good, right? Wrong - and this is a perfect example of how many sustainability initiatives seem counterintuitive at first glance. There are a few reasons why Cleaner Cotton is such an important piece of the sustainable agricultural puzzle:

1. Organic cotton requires a great deal of hand labor. With California's higher minimum wage, this means that converting to an organic system can be cost prohibitive for conventional farmers. In fact, much of the organic cotton used in U.S. clothing, for example, is shipped from overseas, where the cost of labor is dramatically lower (resulting in more competitive pricing). So while overseas organic cotton may reduce pesticide and GMO use, it does nothing to support local (and badly needed) American farming economies.
2. The problem of toxic pesticides:
   To get about 3 bales of cotton per acre in California, conventional growers use an average of 2.1 pounds of chemicals.
   Cleaner cotton offers better yields than organic. "This is one of the significant factors in bringing growers into the 'cleaner cotton' program," Grose explains. While conventional California growers yield about 3 bales of cotton per acre, "organic cotton so far yields 50% of that. Since growers are paid per pound for their fiber, this represents significant economic risk...especially without a committed market." And how does cleaner cotton compare to conventional? "The yields are the same."
3. Proportionally, cleaner cotton cuts chemical use more than organic. In 2007, there were 240 acres of organic cotton grown in the state, reducing chemical use by about 500 pounds, according to the SCP. Compare that to the 2,000 acres of cleaner cotton that resulted in a reduction of about 2,000 pounds of chemicals, and you start to see why cleaner cotton makes so much sense.

Given the clear advantages of cleaner cotton, then, it should be a simple matter of switching growers from their conventional systems, right? Well, not exactly.

A system greater than the sum of its parts

We all know that changing just one component in a system is unlikely to change that system in the long term. We might see a temporary shift or hiccup, but eventually that system will self-correct and return to the status quo. So, to effect long-term sustainable change, each piece of the system needs to change together. As Grose mentioned, without a market of fiber manufacturers committed to purchasing cleaner cotton, there's no guarantee growers will be able to sell their cleaner yield. So the SCP is taking a three-pronged approach:

1. It helps conventional farmers convert their acreage to cleaner cotton crops (creating a supply).
2. It encourages businesses to purchase California-grown cleaner cotton in addition to overseas-grown organic cotton and instead of conventional cotton (building a distribution system).
3. It educates consumers about the advantages of cleaner cotton (creating a market demand).

Of course, changing the attitudes and behaviors of three different constituent groups is much harder than changing just one.

Reaching one goal through multiple stakeholders

If the Sustainable Cotton Project approached their campaign using a blanket message for all three groups, they might find themselves facing serious resistance. Each of these groups has a different set of obstacles to changing already comfortable (and often, profitable) behaviors. Looking at our farmers, for example, the challenges in getting them to switch from a conventional farming system are clear. Grose puts it in context:

"Cotton is grown in different regions. each with their different ecological stresses. Organic is a good tool in developing nations, where labor costs are cheaper. It's not an effective tool in developed nations where labor costs are high.

Asking a farmer to transition to organic cotton is like asking a western medicine doctor to transition to Chinese medicine and acupuncture: it's a fundamentally different system.

Cleaner cotton brings conventional farmers into biological systems, and over time they begin to trust them and apply them to other crops. Because it is scalable, it converts more farmers and more acres to biological systems than organic does. Cleaner cotton doesn't negate organic; each has their relevance in a given region."

But manufacturers and consumers are driven by different obstacles (often price, perceptions of quality, and others). So, the SCP communicates its umbrella message—"cleaner cotton is better than conventional"—to each group using different subtexts and communication channels:

• Growers
  "Farmers listen to farmers," says Grose. Farmer-to-farmer information sharing programs appeal to the close-knit community and trust issues found among growers, and on-site farm tours allow growers to see cleaner cotton in action.
• Manufacturers
  Farm tours also engage manufacturers, switching the mindset from numbers on paper to real-world results. SCP also reaches out to companies at trade shows and company headquarters, providing "very visual presentations" in language that appeals to their particular motivations.
• Consumers
  Finally, SCP has created an online presence to educate the general public about the advantages of purchasing items made with cleaner cotton. The group also uses traditional publicity campaigns to drive awareness.
  

By respecting the concerns of each of their target groups and selecting appropriate communications channels, the Sustainable Cotton Project reaches more people, and has a greater lasting impact than if they either used a single communications campaign, only reached out to one group at a time, or positioned cleaner cotton to compete with other accepted farming systems. In fact, Grose is quick to point out that cooperation has been key to the group's success: "we position cleaner cotton to complement, not compete, with organic cotton, since the goals are the same: non-GM (genetic modification), family farmers, reduction in chemicals, etc." Treating each group as a valuable component in the whole system has resulted in a highly effective campaign.

Simplifying otherwise complex messages has its pitfalls

It's not all fluffy sweaters and fuzzy mittens, of course. The SCP still faces some challenges given the complexities of the industry. During her town hall presentation, Grose described one of the fallouts of such an effective communications campaign: simple messages are easier for people to grasp, but then you risk oversimplifying the issues to the detriment of your ultimate goal. In the mid-late '90s, for example, the group ran a campaign using the all-American t-shirt as its symbol:

"We took data on chemicals sprayed from all cotton states at that time, and the average yield of fiber per acre, and average amount of cotton in a typical t-shirt, then we did the math...and 1/3 pound [of argicultural chemicals] used for every t-shirt is what it came to at that time in the U.S. It was so effective a message that a host of companies picked it up without doing the math on the cotton they were using...so the data is no longer accurate, yet it is still used by some because it is a simple message."

Unfortunately, there may not be an easy solution to this problem of complex messaging. "Brands love to communicate in sound bites," reminds Grose, which means it's up to those crafting the sound bites to think harder about where they might end up, and how they might be used. Which leads us, often, to looking at the issue from different angles - both from the points of view of each stakeholder group, and from those we haven't traditionally considered.

When asked about the challenges and opportunities involved in reaching different groups with seemingly different interests, Grose responded: "They see cleaner cotton as part of an overall cotton strategy which includes organic and cleaner cotton. It's a significant shift from thinking about the product, to thinking about the cotton business." And that shift in our overall perception of any given "problem" is what will ultimately lead to better, more sustainable solutions in every sector.


Related Posts:
Sustainable Design Town Hall: Sharing Good Ideas