2024

Annual Report
Out Now

A Note From
Our Founder,
Prof. Dr Michael Otto

“AbTF’s work is more important and necessary than ever.”

Talking together. Finding solutions together. Working together. For the past 20 years, the Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) has been successfully working with its large network of partners to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, to protect nature, to promote animal welfare, and to make the textile economy more transparent and sustainable. Now, with the world in crisis and development cooperation in transition, AbTF’s work is more important and necessary than ever.

In 1970, the world’s industrialised countries decided to invest 0.7 percent of their gross national product in development cooperation in future. That target was never reached. Today, international development cooperation is in the grip of a deep-rooted crisis. Not only has the US administration under President Donald Trump shuttered USAID, its agency for international development, but other key donor countries, such as Germany, are also cutting their development budgets. In total, one third of international support has fallen away over the last three years—and this in the face of more wars and conflicts than the world has seen since World War II. In addition, the consequences of climate change are becoming ever more tangible, affecting especially many countries in the Global South.
How can effective development cooperation be achieved under these difficult circumstances? A United Nations (UN) conference on development financing—the first in a decade—took place in Seville, Spain, in early July this year. Thousands of participants explored solutions to the pressing problems facing the Global South, ultimately summing up their discussions in the Sevilla Commitment. In this outcome document, the participating member states reaffirmed their commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and assigned the private sector a key role in coping with the development crisis; private investors are to be encouraged to increase investment in development projects in the coming years, and private capital is intended to help compensate for gaps in government funding and to promote both trade and the further processing of raw materials in the countries of origin.
An outstanding example of what committed action in the private sector can achieve has been offered by the work of the Aid by Trade Foundation for the past 20 years.

Today—as two decades ago, when I established the foundation—the Aid by Trade Foundation is committed to working with retailers and brands and with its partners in the production regions to ensure that cotton and cashmere production is sustainable and in harmony with nature, that ecosystems are protected, and that the living conditions of small-scale farmers improve.
By following this approach, AbTF has succeeded in developing an impactful family of standards. It began with Cotton made in Africa® (CmiA), an initiative through which AbTF started its work in three African countries in 2005; today, CmiA counts more than 60 brands and retailers among its licensing partners. A newer addition to the family, The Good Cashmere Standard® (GCS), has already attracted more than 50 companies as cashmere partners. In total, there are currently around 3,000 companies from throughout the supply chain working with the sustainable raw materials of the AbTF standards. Beyond providing solid evidence of AbTF’s success, these figures show how scalable and impact-oriented non-governmental engagement in development cooperation can be.
Nevertheless, we cannot allow ourselves to be distracted from our purpose or lose sight of our values. Since its inception, AbTF has been working to foster a greater sense of social and environmental responsibility for and within the textile supply chain. These efforts have consistently been built on cooperation and understanding. At first glance, this approach may seem tedious and unproductive, but two decades of results prove otherwise. In fact, they show that it is the surest way to achieve sustainable solutions. It has demonstrably changed the international textile and fashion industry for the better—by applying AbTF’s principle of activating market forces to enable people to help themselves.
Much has already been achieved under this private-sector-oriented premise, not least by reinvesting licensing revenue to fund thousands of training sessions and numerous social projects in the production regions. Another beneficiary of private-sector funding is the AbTF Biodiversity Fund. Established this year with an endowment of EUR 500,000, it opens up new opportunities for AbTF to pursue biodiversity conservation in the project regions even more intensively.
Amongst all this, there is one thing we should not allow ourselves to forget: change requires continuity. This may sound paradoxical at first. Indeed, innovation and change are fundamental to AbTF’s agenda, as seen in the newly established Transparency Standard or in the Regenerative Cotton Standard, recently and successfully introduced in India and Africa. However, our successes to date would hardly have been possible without our trusted partners, many of whom have been at our side for years. Ultimately, everything comes down to the people who work for AbTF, its initiatives, and its partnering companies—and to the hundreds of thousands of people who produce the sustainable raw materials for the textile industry. They all provide daily proof of what private-sector-based development cooperation can achieve.
This annual report is therefore more than just a matter of taking inventory. Rather, it shows how much AbTF, its standards, its partner companies, and the raw material producers make possible, united in the conviction that they can give the world a better future.

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Our Year at a Glance
In 2024, AbTF actively engaged with industry leaders and stakeholders across various events and platforms, reaffirming its commitment to transformative change in the cotton and textile sectors. By expanding global partnerships and enhancing its presence in key production regions, the foundation effectively communicated its mission, fostered trust across the textile value chain, supported partners in adopting sustainability standards, and catalysed industry-wide transformation.

AbTF participated in significant events, such as the Heimtextil fair in Germany as well as the International Cotton and Textile Show (SICOT) in Burkina Faso.
By hosting the C24 Cotton Conference in India, AbTF brought many international stakeholders along the textile supply chain together and connected the seams between its Cotton made in Africa standard and the Regenerative Cotton Standard, which was successfully piloted in India.
AbTF organised a pilot verification mission to Tanzania to roll out RCS in Africa and contributed to the Tanzanian Regenerative Production Landscape Project, which was developed by Helvetas Tanzania, GIZ, and the Laudes Foundation.

Visits to India and Bangladesh assisted local sourcing teams of retail and brand partners in implementing traceable CmiA cotton throughout their respective supply chains.
AbTF reinforced its commitment to sustainable supply chains at the annual meeting of the Alliance for Sustainable Textiles.
This year’s Innovations Club in Tanzania worked towards bridging the gap between science and agronomy.
AbTF contributed to adaptation strategies at the IIED’s CBA18 conference in Tanzania and discussed sustainable practices at the Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen.
In addition to becoming a member of Partenariat pour le Coton—a joint initiative by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to promote economic growth in developing countries through football—AbTF attended its first meeting of the initiative’s steering committee in Benin.
Representatives of AbTF participated in the 20th general assembly meeting of the African Cotton Association (ACA).

AbTF collaborates with African People and Wildlife to integrate the ACTIVETM Community Engagement programme in its projects.
As the host of a regional workshop in Benin, AbTF engaged key stakeholders in shaping the future of sustainable cotton and textile production in Africa.
At the Natural Fibre Connect conference in Italy, AbTF presented GCS’s impact on animal welfare in cashmere production.
Together with its partner Vijay Cotton & Fibre Co. LLP, AbTF hosted RCS farmer meetings in rural cotton-growing areas of Maharashtra, focussing on implementation strategy, field verification, and ginnery-level traceability.

AbTF contributed to panel discussions on value-to-business concepts, regenerative agriculture, gender equality, and community engagement at various conferences across Europe and Africa, including the Hamburg Sustainability Conference in Germany, World Cotton Day in Benin, Ligue Sport Coton in Côte d’Ivoire, and the African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation (AFCOT) forum in France.
As a participant in the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) forum in Germany and the Access to Climate Finance Expo in Chad, AbTF engaged in wildlife conservation, community engagement, and climate resilience strategies.
By hosting a regional workshop in Zambia, AbTF engaged key stakeholders in shaping the future of sustainable cotton in Africa.
AbTF joined the Make the Label Count coalition to ensure the fairness and transparency of claims made in the EU regarding sustainability.
Representatives of AbTF met with supply chain partners in China to discuss CmiA’s Hard Identity Preserved (HIP) traceability system.

FACTS & FIGURES

CmiA & CmiA Organic

Cotton made in Africa® (CmiA) is a leading sustainability standard for cotton sourced from Africa. By partnering with CmiA, businesses gain reliable access to a scalable and environmentally sound source of cotton while also significantly improving the resilience of small-scale farmers and their families. The Aid by Trade Foundation (AbTF) also offers CmiA Organic, a standard that
brings together the best of both worlds: the stringent ecological requirements of certified organic farming combined with the proven social and economic impact of Cotton made in Africa. This creates a unique and powerful two-pronged standard that benefits farming communities and businesses alike.

Regenerative Cotton Standard

By the end of 2023, AbTF had added the Regenerative
Cotton Standard® (RCS) to its family of standards and extended its cotton cultivation activities beyond Africa
into India. This means that fashion brands and retailers
all over the world can now turn to both Tanzania and
India to obtain cotton that adheres to the Regenerative Cotton Standard. As RCS is a forward-looking standard
that pays special attention to regenerating nature and
soil health, its adoption actively contributes to restoring ecosystems, enhancing biodiversity, building climate re-silience, and securing the long-term stability of textile
supply chains.

The Good Cashmere Standard

Beyond being the only independently verified sustain-ability standard for cashmere fibres from Inner Mon-golia, The Good Cashmere Standard® (GCS) is a global leader in the sustainable cashmere industry. It collab-orates with over 200 partners across twelve textile pro-duction markets within the global supply chain. More than 50 international brands, including H&M, Galer-ies Lafayette, J.Crew, and The White Company, rely on GCS-verified cashmere to meet sustainability and due diligence requirements.

PEOPLE & STORIES

Also for this year’s Annual Report, we interviewed experts and business partners to gain their valuable insights on our standards, current challenges and opportunities the future holds.