Aid by Trade Foundation partners with Lectra’s TextileGenesis™ to enhance traceability of Cotton made in Africa® (CmiA) fiber
Ein Dokument
Paris, Hamburg 2024-11-29. The Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) and TextileGenesis , a Lectra group company, are proud to announce the continuation of their successful partnership to further enhance traceability for Cotton made in Africa® (CmiA) verified fiber. This new collaboration aims to reinforce supply chain transparency and drive CmiA’s commitment to sustainable and ethical cotton production.
CmiA, one of the world’s leading standards for sustainable cotton, works to improve the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Africa while protecting the environment. By using advanced Fibercoins™ technology, TextileGenesis enables complete traceability of CmiA cotton from cotton bale to finished products. This continuation of their collaboration builds on the success of the previous collaboration between TextileGenesis and AbTF on The Good Cashmere Standard®, focused on enhancing traceability, which launched earlier in 2024. The extension of this partnership to CmiA further strengthens both organizations’ efforts towards scalable and impactful sustainable practices in the textile industry.
“At Cotton made in Africa®, we highly value transparency and strive to create meaningful change for both nature and farming communities. By making CmiA cotton traceable through TextileGenesis, we empower brands already utilizing TextileGenesis to not only source ethically but also benefit from established tracking tools in their business practices. This collaboration promotes long-term sustainability for farmers, nature, and transparency while offering practical options for implementing traceability requirements within the industry,” said Christian Barthel, Head of Business Development at the Aid by Trade Foundation. “We are excited to expand our collaboration with the Aid by Trade Foundation and bring our cutting-edge technology to Cotton made in Africa®. This partnership empowers brands to ensure the integrity and sustainability of their supply chains, while also supporting the livelihoods of smallholder farmers in Africa,” adds Amit Gautam, founder and CEO of TextileGenesis.
The cooperation between TextileGenesis and Cotton made in Africa® empowers brands to confidently verify the origins of CmiA verified cotton, ensuring accurate sustainability claims while improving annual reporting. In addition, brands using TextileGenesis will have access to the industry’s largest supplier network, enabling them to track their entire production ecosystem, gaining comprehensive visibility across their entire supply chain—from fiber producers to third-party auditors. Through this new partnership, retailers and brands can benefit from two established tracking systems that provide transparency for CmiA-verified cotton from field to fashion, offering great flexibility in tracking their cotton. Those already collaborating with TextileGenesis benefit from using a single platform to manage traceability across multiple material sustainability standards, including Cotton made in Africa®. This streamlined approach improves efficiency and creates synergies across the supply chain. Others can continue to rely on CmiA's own established SCOT system to monitor CmiA-verified cotton throughout their entire textile supply chain.
It is notable that 90% of material sustainability standards, including CmiA, have adopted TextileGenesis as their traceability backbone. This adoption highlights TextileGenesis as a single, easy-to-access platform for traceability across a variety of certified materials, making it the industry standard for ensuring authenticity and compliance across diverse certification systems.
Yours sincerely,
Holger Diedrich
Press Contact
Aid by Trade Foundation | Gurlittstraße 14 | 20099 Hamburg | Germany
MAIL holger.diedrich@abt-foundation.org
About the Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) and Cotton made in Africa® (CmiA): Founded in 2005, the Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) is an internationally renowned non-profit organisation that works throughout the world to promote sustainable raw materials. Its activities make a decisive and measurable contribution to improving the living conditions of people and animals while protecting the environment. AbTF takes a practical approach by creating and maintaining a variety of standards to verify raw materials: Cotton made in Africa® (CmiA), Cotton made in Africa Organic (CmiA Organic), Regenerative Cotton Standard (RCS), and The Good Cashmere Standard (GCS). As the challenges textile companies and small-scale farmers are facing grow, the standards have a major role to play in ensuring their resilience and future viability. Cotton made in Africa®is one of the world’s leading standards for sustainably produced cotton. Its goal is to accelerate nature restoration and social justice for African farming communities by activating market forces. CmiA works with a wide-ranging network in cotton-growing countries, including numerous partners throughout the textile value chain as well as both governmental and non-governmental organizations, to ensure the implementation of the standard and the proper processing of CmiA verified raw materials throughout the world. For more information visit www.cottonmadeinafrica.org.
Press Contact
Christina Ben Bella
Email: Christina.benbella@abt-foundation.org
+49 (0) 1637735311 | www.aidbytrade.org
About TextileGenesis:
Founded in 2018, TextileGenesis, a Lectra company, provides a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that enables fashion brands and sustainable textile manufacturers to ensure a reliable, secure and fully digital traceability of their textiles, from the fiber to the consumer, and thereby guarantee their authenticity and origins. The platform provides traceability for textiles, leather and footwear, employing fiber forwards traceability for sustainable and certified materials and Supply Chain discovery approach to traceability for conventional materials. Its innovative traceability mechanism, which addresses both ends of the textile value chain, as well as its network of partners for material certification, and its technology platform guarantee the exchange and tracking of reliable and secure data throughout a material's life cycle. TextileGenesis platform also identifies and flags supply chain compliance/legal risks across the value chain from tier 1-4 for brands.
About Lectra:
As a major player in the fashion, automotive and furniture markets, Lectra contributes to the Industry 4.0 revolution with boldness and passion by fully integrating CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) into its global strategy. The Group offers industrial intelligence solutions that facilitate the digital transformation of the companies a it serves. With its software, cutting equipment, data analysis solutions and associated services, Lectra helps its customers push boundaries and unlock their potential. The Group is proud to state that its 3000 employees are driven by three core values: being open-minded thinkers, trusted partners and passionate innovators. Founded in 1973, Lectra reported revenues of 478 million euros in 2023. The company is listed on Euronext, where it is included in the following indices: CAC All Shares, CAC Technology, EN Tech Leaders and ENT PEA-PME 150.
For more information, please visit lectra.com.
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