The Australian Cotton industry releases an annual sustainability update, along with a summary and a detailed Excel data pack.
The summary provides a snapshot of the Australian cotton industry’s sustainability progress across its most important PLANET (environment), PEOPLE (social) and PADDOCK (economic) topics.
The PLANET. PEOPLE. PADDOCK. Framework sets out targeted outcomes for priority topics across three key pillars:
The priority topics align with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Find out more about the priority topics, our goals and pathways to achieving the targeted outcomes.
Experimental, partial assessment
The Australian cotton industry and Queensland Department of Primary Industries have collaborated for two years to use data collected in the revamped Australian cotton sustainability data framework to produce an experimental industry-scale natural and social capital assessment.
This is one of the world’s first industry-led partial natural and social capital assessments. We have called this work ‘experimental’ to mirror the first national Experimental Estimate Natural Ecosystem Accounts released earlier this year by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Department of Climate Change, Energy the Environment and Water.
Its purpose is to provide more insightful data on the value created or eroded by the cotton industry to support decision-making and communication inside and outside the industry.
This work is also being shared widely with other industries, to support a consistent approach to natural and social capital assessments.
Cotton Australia's data dashboard reported on Australian cotton information across a range of metrics, including production, yield, quality, and social and environmental sustainability.
Using a combination of cotton industry research and survey data, government and publicly available sources, the user-friendly dashboard contained over 70 data sets, from export market results to progress against sustainability targets and improvements in farming practices.