Pakistan’s Soorty Wants Help Scaling Organic Cotton Initiative
Just 1.4 percent of the world’s cotton production was organic in the 2020/21 season, according to the International Cotton Advisory Council. Soorty wants to change that—and it’s calling on the industry to help.
At Sourcing Journal’s Fall Summit on Nov. 2, Ebru Debba?, executive director, global marketing and sales for the vertically integrated Karachi-based denim supplier, reflected on why vertical production is essential, its organic cotton initiative and issued a call to arms during a conversation with Sourcing Journal’s features editor, Kate Nishimura.
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“Every choice we make… elicits an environmental, economic and human response,” Debba? said. “So, I’d like to give the perspective of the manufacturer. Soorty has been in the denim and jeans manufacturing industry for over 40 years. The vertical infrastructure gives us the opportunity to maximize efficiency, optimize our costs, work with key unlock projects in denim manufacturing garments and pursue data in a very profound way.”
And Soorty’s model is structured on KPIs to maximize its sustainable impact, Debba? said. The company’s science-based targets aim for a 54.6 percent smaller carbon footprint by 2030.
“When you work with targets for impact, you have to define a very profound roadmap leading to that target,” she said. “And we’re now working with all the different projects to build into this target.”
One of the projects is Soorty’s organic cotton initiative.
“In 2021, we decided that we needed to really go down into the field and roll up our sleeves and so we started our Soorty Organic Cotton Initiative (SOCI), which actually is a social and environmental impact project,” Debba? said. “The whole goal for us is to lift the community and also create a carbon sink with this project.”
SOCI was developed in partnership with WWF-Pakistan, the Department of Agriculture Extension and Balochistan, with support and input from the Laudes Foundation, which aims to bring organic farming practices and a better way of life to farmers in the Balochistan region of Pakistan.
“When we first launched this project, we had only 800 farmers enrolled. Currently, we have 13,000 farmers working in 10,000 acres,” Debba? said. “So, this is a great achievement, and we have close to 700 tons of organic cotton certified by the Control Union.”
The AI enthusiast sees 700 tons as just the beginning and aims to scale the two-year-old project in Pakistan and elsewhere. Currently, the program has 52 Farmer Field Schools (FFS) training each farmer twice a month. The FFS model “embraces sustainable agriculture anchored in ecology and farmer empowerment,” according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
“The whole idea is to use the permaculture practices in producing the organic cotton so we’re not using any chemicals; we’re teaching the farmers how to produce using bio-fertilizers, nontoxic pest controls, so we don’t really need to use chemicals,” Debba? said. “So, you kind of start innovating and finding different ways of approaching a problem when you start building up with your partners.”
The project is generating substantial interest from the industry players such as Bestseller and Inditex. However, more partners are needed for Soorty to achieve its sustainability goals in the coming years.
“There’s a gap in the market between what is demanded and what is required, and the whole commercial dynamics that we are going through,” Debba? said. “Projects, as such, require investment. But also, we need to have brand partners on this project. This is a huge callout—I’m telling all the brands and retailers, come on, we can do this together, and we need to do this together.”
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