Tracing Better Cotton through Navbahor Tekstil: the pilot presented in Copenhagen

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) led a pilot project in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector to trace Better Cotton through the vertically integrated operations of Navbahor Tekstil. For the pilot, UNECE set up a digital platform that logs the movement of Better Cotton from a licensed farm through ginning, spinning, weaving and manufacturing.

On 28 June 2023 the pilot was the subject of a panel discussion at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen. The speakers were Alan McClay, Chief Executive Officer of Better Cotton; Olivia Chassot of UNECE’s Economic Cooperation and Trade Division; and Mirmukhsin Sultanov, First Deputy Chairman of Uztextileprom.

Better Cotton noted that Uzbekistan’s cotton industry is organised in vertically integrated clusters, which makes cotton easier to trace, and said the pilot would help inform the development of its own traceability system.