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🌱 Ep 29. Cotton, Soil & Solar: Re‑imagining the “Quiet King” of Textiles with Catherine Bottrill and Felix Bartlett (x Fashion District)
211 Plays6 days ago
This is a special episode in partnership with Fashion District London.
In this episode of No Ordinary Cloth, we go back to where the cotton story truly begins: in the soil and in small farming communities. Mili is joined by Felix Bartlett, founder of Biothread, and Dr. Catherine Bottrill, co‑founder of ACE (Affordable Clean Environment) Cotton, to explore how regenerative farming, microbial science and clean energy can transform the future of the world’s favourite fibre.
Together they unpack the small and large scale cotton farming industry and ask what it would mean for cotton to become a force for regeneration: rebuilding soil health, cutting emissions and creating real wealth and dignity for the people who grow it.
In this episode, we talk about:
- Why cotton is still the “quiet king” of textiles – beloved by the richest and the poorest, and deeply bound up with power, politics and identity.
- The difference between conventional, organic and regenerative cotton – and why “regenerative” is as much a process and pathway as an end state.
- How Biothread uses microbial consortia and field trials to reduce synthetic fertiliser use, improve yields and strengthen soil health in cotton systems.
- The social realities behind cotton: farmer debt, crop failure, climate volatility and why soil degradation sits at the heart of many of these crises.
- ACE Cotton’s village‑level model in South Asia – combining solar irrigation, clean household energy and biodiversity projects to support just decarbonisation.
- How brand decarbonisation targets, farm‑level emissions and smallholder energy access can be aligned so climate action also builds resilience and opportunity.
- The role of data, measurement and software in proving impact – from input reductions and yield changes to carbon, water and livelihoods metrics.
- Farmer trust, pilots and “show and tell”: what it takes to introduce new technologies and financing models into communities where risk is already high.
- Why cotton must be protected as the most widely used natural fibre if we are to avoid a fully synthetic future for fashion.
- The power of storytelling in shifting cotton from “cheap commodity” to living system – and how Felix and Catherine draw on their own backgrounds to do that work.
Books on the history of cotton explore its role as a global commodity that shaped modern capitalism, industrialisation, and imperialism
- Empire of Cotton: A Global History : Sven Beckert
- A History of the Cotton Industry : Anthony Burton
- Cotton (Textiles that Changed the World) : Beverly Lemire
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Recommended listening:
Ep 25. Turning Agri Waste to Cellulose Fibre
Cover art: Photo by Siora, Photography on Unsplash
Music: Inspired Ambient, Orchestraman
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Transcript
Introduction to No Ordinary Cloth & Millie Tharakin
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the No Ordinary Cloth podcast, where we explore innovations bubbling away at the intersection of textiles, emerging technology, sustainability, and craft. I'm your host, Millie Tharakin, a textile researcher and innovator.
Focus on Cotton & Its Significance
00:00:22
Speaker
This is a special episode created in partnership with Fashion District London, a dynamic hub for fashion innovation in East London, supporting startups with innovation networks, affordable spaces, business guidance and investment opportunity.
00:00:36
Speaker
Today's episode is about cotton. And trust me when I say there is nothing ordinary about cotton. It's clearly a material of the future if we're trying to grow it on the moon. In 2019, China's Chang'e-4 mission landed on the moon and they carried with them a biosphere with various seeds and cotton was the only plant that sprouted. Yes, it sprouted on the moon in this biosphere, of course. Sadly, it died in it a few days later. But for a brief moment, we had cotton on the moon.
00:01:08
Speaker
Very, very exciting. Back here on Earth, cotton has survived for centuries and shaped our modern world and
Exploring Cotton's Historical & Social Impact
00:01:16
Speaker
economics. A quick story before we dive in. So last year at the Victorian Albert Archive Centre here in London, I watched conservators slowly unroll seventeenth eighteenth nineteenth century Bengal muslin fabric and I was so moved. I had tears streaming down my face. It was the most beautiful, sheer, natural fabric I had ever seen. What I had read about Bengal muslin was all true. It was like woven air or evening dew as it had been described.
00:01:52
Speaker
It had such an ethereal quality that it's quite hard to put to words really. And the fabric really captured the exquisite meeting of nature and handcraft skills. I was moved to tears.
00:02:05
Speaker
I love cotton. Everything about it captivates me. From the fluffy cloud-like pods in the fields to the Bengal muslins of the Roman and Mughal courts to the kadi that became a symbol of Gandhi's Swadeshi movement and India's independence. It powered the Manchester mills of the Industrial Revolution, and it is deeply entangled with the exploitation of the New World slaves.
00:02:28
Speaker
And still, it grips us today from runways to sweatshops, even as a plant we're bold enough to try growing on the moon.
Sustainable Cotton Growth with Catherine & Felix
00:02:36
Speaker
On that note, let's talk to Catherine Bottrill, co-founder of Affordable Clean Environment, ACE, and Felix Bartlett, CEO and founder of BioThread, who will shed light on the challenges of growing cotton today and what we need to do to ensure the future of cotton is still bright here on earth for years to come.
00:02:59
Speaker
A warm welcome to you, Catherine and Felix. I'm particularly excited about this episode because cotton is by far one of my absolute favorite materials. And I really mean that. Cotton has always felt quite magical to me, actually. There's all kinds of exciting new materials that are emerging, but I would say cotton is still the quiet king of textiles.
00:03:22
Speaker
Endlessly versatile, deeply familiar and woven into almost every wardrobe. And it carries an incredible history bound up with trade and power and politics and it's shaped economies and empires for centuries. But cotton is clearly far more than a material we just used to
Cotton Farming: Challenges & Innovations
00:03:40
Speaker
make things. There's so many stories that we can say about cotton. And this feels like a special episode because we're kind of going back to basics and starting where the cotton story really begins.
00:03:51
Speaker
in the soil, on the farm, with farmers at the heart of the narrative. And you're both reimagining cotton, not by replacing it, but by transforming how it is grown to ensure a sustainable future. so I'm really excited to hear your stories and your journey.
00:04:08
Speaker
Cotton is so ubiquitous. It belongs to everyone, worn and loved by the richest and the poorest, and it remains one of the most sought after materials on earth. So let's start there. Why is cotton still one of the most desirable materials for clothing?
00:04:23
Speaker
Catherine. Yeah, I think cotton has all those properties because of especially its breathability next to the skin. So it really sort of connects you. i think ah and next your skin, it's like that natural fiber that, and it adjusts for the weather. So especially in hot climates when it's sticky and steamy, to have cotton next to your skin is wonderful. You know, when you're sleeping at night, really wonderful. And then how it layers...
00:04:52
Speaker
against your skin. So it's got that next to skin property. Nice. How about you, Felix? I'd say what's so interesting about cotton there is just, you know, how versatile it is and how widely grown it can be. You know, you look across all these different continents and all these different areas from, you know, Australia to Peru to the US to, you know, places in Africa that is just so widely grown. I also think it's very interesting that, you know, what...
00:05:15
Speaker
many people probably don't know is that there's different types of cotton, for instance, you know, there's Upland cotton, which is the most predominant cotton, which is being grown, but then there's also other fibers such as Pima, which is actually a far higher quality. um And so I think that that's why, you know, it's very good for everyday clothing use. But then when you look at say Egyptian cotton and stuff like that, there's also far higher quality cotton as well, which then fits more into that sort of luxury and sort of premium element too. And I'll say because of that, it just makes it quite versatile fiber.
00:05:40
Speaker
Now, before we dive in, I think it's good to clarify a bit of terminology so that our listeners and we're all sort of on the same page. If you could just briefly explain to us what is organic cotton and what is regenerative cotton and what's the difference or does it really matter? Maybe Felix, you go ahead and then I'll bring you in, Catherine. Yeah.
00:06:02
Speaker
So yeah, so organic cotton is you know very focused on the farm level and that is without the use of synthetic inputs. So you're not using chemical fertilizers and chemicals aren't really going into that production process.
00:06:13
Speaker
Whereas on the other hand, regenerative is sort of looking at the farm level and trying to really regenerate that soil health. And so regenerative, I'll say, is more of a process. whereby with regenerative cotton, you can start at a point, you know, where you're still using these chemical inputs, but it's more about, you know, trying to move away from those systems to try and reduce those chemical inputs and restoring the soil health in doing so. And so that is why you're now seeing a bit more of a drive from the industry as a whole towards regenerative over organic cotton, because organic cotton can be, you know, very hard for farmers to adopt within one season. You know, if your farm's been using these chemicals and fertilizers for a long time, you can't really just switch then go organic and just cut all of them out at once. And so regenerative is quite a good sort of measure in that it sort of really drives it through that process that you can actually start to reduce those inputs, become regenerative, restore the soil health. And then over the process of a few years, hopefully you can then get to that point where can then become organic. Catherine, anything to add there? Yeah, the thing to add is organic is also a non-genetic modified seeds. So it's really thinking about what the seed bank and quality is the seed. So organic would be using seeds that have gone through natural selection for focusing on certain properties versus a genetic modified, which is much more lab and lab.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, selective different genes and properties for it. And then just to pick up on what Felix was saying about one of the challenges for organic is you can't have a organic next to non-organic farming system, especially within a smallholder context, because then you're going to have the... the pets and stuff and the migration. So then the crop becomes really vulnerable. So you do have to kind of designate an area to focus on organic. But I think as you also come up to the retailers and the customers, I think customers and me retailers much more understand the terminology of organic because it's been a well-established concept. So I think in terms of trying to tell a story to the consumer and brand, organic is a quick shorthand, whereas regenerative is a much more new terminology and therefore it's not the ah defined. So actually and an important thing to say about organic, it is about a certification and the standards and it's regulated. So you can't use that term unless you've gone through a specific process and verified.
00:08:37
Speaker
Whereas regenerative is a little bit more not rules based as of yet, although there are some certifications that are developed for the regenerative kind of interest. And as Felix has emphasized, I think the regenerative is much more from a farming point of view about soil health. But when I see brands use the term regenerative, I think they're thinking it it in a much more holistic way around regenerative, around social elements and livelihoods. Yeah, particularly that and and thinking about our
00:09:09
Speaker
circular nature and our relationship and connection for nature. So I think when brands use the term regenerative, they're thinking a bit more touchy and feely, whereas farmers are thinking very much tangibly, you know, how good is my my soil health?
00:09:24
Speaker
That's really helpful. So hopefully we're all on the same page now. We are going to start diving a bit more deeper into BioThread with Felix. What was the original insight or frustration you had um that led you to start BioThread? And what was the problem in cotton farming that you were sort of really determined to crack and sort out?
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, so BioThread was actually something which sort of came to fruition through a um an MBA research project that I was doing at London College of Fashion. We had to go away and think about an innovation that could help, you know, change fashion industry. And so, you know, really starting with that, was looking at the core issues within fashion. And what kept coming to the forefront was cotton production systems. And i think that's, you know, for so long within fashion, I think cotton has just been treated as a completely separate industry. And for too long, the fashion industry has obviously been consuming huge, huge quantities of cotton, but yet they have not been taking any responsibility for any of the devastating environmental and social impacts that have been, you know, really occurring through cotton production systems.
Impact of Poor Practices & Microbial Technology Benefits
00:10:25
Speaker
And I think that,
00:10:26
Speaker
Because of all of that, the fact that cotton is controlled through these vast global commodity markets and no brands can really tell you where their cotton is coming from, who grew it, where it was sourced from. Because once it's going from the farm level, it's then almost lost in these huge commodity markets going into these systems. And I think that because of the huge disconnect there, there's just been such a yeah, so of I'd say there's been such a ah lack of brand sort of direct involvement to really improve those systems because, you know, it's just really out of their scope and they just don't reerst understand the systems. And so as I was looking at something that really stuck out was that,
00:10:56
Speaker
the largest wave of suicides in human history occurred from cotton farmers in India. Since 1995 to, I think it was 2015, there's been over 200,000 cotton farmer suicides in India alone.
00:11:07
Speaker
And that is all based around you know crop failures. And I think that especially know climate change is making that even more devastating, where there's far less predictable weather patterns. I think that, you know, because the farmers, and especially small hole farmers, are often taking out these loans to then buy their fertilizer, their seeds and all these things, once the crops fail due to climate or or other issues, often they get trapped in these um sort of payments and sort of loan sort of deals that they're bought into. And it's the financial burden of that which, you know, pushes them to these sort of catastrophic conditions.
00:11:38
Speaker
sort of endpoints. And so that was something that as a social issue really stuck out to me. And so I really started to then delve a lot deeper into, you know, what are these core sort of problems happening within that cotton system? And what was really coming to fruition each time was that the crop was failing a lot because of soil health. I think it's the fact that for too long, people have just seen soil as, you know, never ending. They don't really realize that soil takes tens of thousands of years to develop to be the way that it is now. and that we're killing the soil at the moment because of excessive chemical and fertilizer use. All of the microbes that end the soil have taken thousands of years to develop to be that way, to support life and to support, you know, to support these different plants. And every plant has a specific set of microbes that deliver its nutrients and sustain its health.
00:12:22
Speaker
But over year and year of chemical fertilizer use and years of monocrop growth, what happens is that lots of those microbes just get stripped away from the soil. And that means that year on year, the farmers become more reliant on these chemicals to get that same output as the soil becomes less healthy. And it's sort of, you know, a never ending sort of negative cycle which starts to happen there. And so i was really then started to investigate a lot deeper how you can really start to address this this key issue. So I knew about another company called BioLevel. And so they were making this product called a microbial consortia. And so what that really is, is that they were looking at agricultural food crops and cultivation systems there, same issues. And so they were looking at crops and the microbes that were being eroded by these chemicals and how they could then take these individual microbes, put them together into a lab and develop a community. microbial consortia. And so this product almost still looks like a grain.
00:13:13
Speaker
It could be mixed in with fertilizer or mixed in with water and then um redistributed amongst the fields. In their case, it was agricultural food crops. What that then does is you're bringing those microorganisms which naturally occur there, which have been stripped away and reintroducing them back into those systems. And so that means that with a lot more of those nutrients and microbes available in the soil, that they're carrying out all of those functions a lot better, which means that there's then less requirement for a lot of these chemical fertilizers.
Technological Advancements in Cotton Farming
00:13:39
Speaker
and So what's been so interesting is that, you know, taking these existing products for agricultural food crops now, um applying them to cotton systems, what we're able to see with um our first year trials that we did at Mississippi State was that with a 22% reduction fertilizer, were able to increase the cotton yield by over 10%.
00:13:57
Speaker
And that really sort of puts it in perspective that, you know, fertilizers have really come to take the place of a lot of these microbes. And so that is just what farmers are so reliant on. And also what are so many of these agricultural colleges, what they're really being educated is fundamental for yield.
00:14:12
Speaker
Since World War II and, you know, the huge uptake in fertilizers, there's been huge increases in yields across agriculture. But that's really come at the cost of soil health because there was not as much understanding around it back then.
00:14:24
Speaker
But people are now starting to see that real negative correlation between the use of fertilizers in the long term and chemicals killing off soil health. And so, yeah, that really sort of provided the basis that sort of fed into my research. We also did trials last year with um the University of California and found that, you know, with 30% reductions in fertilizer, we are still able to increase the yield by 6.5%, increase the fiber quality as well, um some soil water retention parameters as well. And so, you know, it's just really become an element of, you sort of key interest for me, just how interlinked these systems are and just how fe fundamental this sort of microbes are. So yeah, sorry for quite long winded answer, but that's sort of, yeah, with the sort of basis of what sort of got me involved in this this very sort of niche element of fashion.
00:15:08
Speaker
Can you expand a little more on what BioThread does beyond the microbial intervention? Yeah, Biothread, what our core focus is, is you know really trying to assist farmers and reduce their fertilizer use and show them that you know we can protect your yields whilst making these cutbacks. And through that, to try and get them to you know align a bit more with some of these certifications, especially regenerative certifications.
00:15:32
Speaker
So we replicated those trials with UC Davis that I touched on and did them again this, well, in 2025, we've just been getting the results back. And there we even showed that with, you know, 40% reduction of fertilizer, we still increase the yields and such. And so we're really trying to position ourselves along farmers across different organic or regenerative certifications to show them how, you know, important it can be to use or understand products like this, because we're they are still very niche and there's not as much understanding amongst and between farming communities. So i think a key part of what we're trying to do now is to increase awareness for microbial consortia and other sort of similar sort of biofertilisers essentially. And sort of at our call, we're focused now on trying to distribute these products. We're still at you know a relatively early stage, only into sort of our third year now. So still really trying to validate the products. But what we really hope there is that
00:16:21
Speaker
through greater farmer adoption, we can then in the long term start to get our farmer network who are using our products, who are reducing their impacts, getting regenerative certification, and then starting to take some of that cotton and then broker it to brands, just trying to to really create that sense of engagement. There's been a gap for too long, as I touched on earlier, where brands have no idea where cotton is coming from, who actually grew it. And we want to try and be able to support these growers to produce you know more sustainable cotton to protect their soil health and also to start to engage in this dialogue with brands who are then hopefully able to invest in you know paying premiums for this cotton, engaging more to support these farmers within their transitions and so on. So although we're at an early stage, we hope to develop it out more in that direction, then hopefully integrating in you know traceability technologies, remote monitoring and sensing technologies to get far more um sort of comprehensive environmental um data and insights too. Because, you know, it's ah it's a continuous process when it comes to of regeneration and, you know, hopefully making that transition in the long term from a conventional farm to regenerative for five, 10 years to then moving into organic systems um and just trying to play a part in that process. room Fantastic. And that was actually my next question. What kind of data are you collecting to to track the change and to show evidence, not just to farmers, but also brands?
00:17:37
Speaker
And what kind of technologies are you using to collect that data? So I'd say the most fundamental level, the key one that we really look for is the input reductions in yield. So looking at primarily how much fertilizer, what percentage of fertilizer you're reducing, showing in some cases it's been up to 40% and still increasing the yield, and then trying to convert that into sort of monetary terms as well, the ah ROI. Because what's happened since, especially since the invasion of Ukraine and the increase in global fuel prices, is that fertilizing is incredibly um energy intensive to produce. And because of that, you saw a vast spike in fertilizer crisis. So fertilizer is incredibly costly for these farmers and very damaging to their soil when they apply it. So looking at how we can reduce that fertilizer, save them that money, how we can then increase their yield so that they then have you know a higher income, a higher ah ROI. We're primarily focused on the US s at the moment. And I mean, cotton growers in the US are currently losing about $200 per acre
00:18:30
Speaker
And it's through various sort of schemes, sort of subsidies that they're able to survive, but it's incredibly difficult for them. And this is something where, especially with, you know, increasing climate pressures, it's only going to get worse. And especially when you have to factor in declining soil health as well, it's incredibly difficult. And so I'll say that those are primary. And then beyond that, we've also been doing some investigation into you know really looking at what microbes are actually there in the soil how those communities are being enhanced through the products looking a lot at soil water retention which is very important seeing how through restoring these microbes and soil health it's then able to retain a lot more water in the soil which then inevitably can lead to developing greater climate resilience in the long term which is incredibly fundamental i mean what you're starting to see in in texas for instance which produces by far the most cotton in the us is that they're starting to get droughts, which is just decimating their cotton crops, just wiping out yields for thousands of farmers, um making these livelihoods you know incredibly, incredibly difficult. And what I think is so important here is that cotton really has to be protected as the most used natural fiber because if cotton becomes, if it's not economically viable for farmers to grow cotton anymore, we'll lose cotton. And that means that the future of fashion will be focused on the synthetic fibers, which are far more damaging to produce, but also more damaging for human health to actually be using those products against your skin as well.
00:19:45
Speaker
You mentioned about traceability and I understand, have you worked with some satellites and other technologies to track the conditions of farms? So last year, we um expanded to about 300 acres of trial partners across the US. But for the time being, you know really trying to establish those core foundations.
00:20:02
Speaker
And so we've just been mainly focused on the farm level for the time being. And so although I have been in conversations with some very interesting companies who are able to take satellite imagery and sort of AI mapping to do large scale farms, for the time being, we just don't didn't really have the necessary sort of a acreage sort of for that. So that's something that i'm definitely more focused on once we start to sort of commercialize further and you're looking at at large farms. In the US, you know some of these farms are thousands of acres, so you can't really have the farmers going out and getting these sort of, you know doing all these on-site tests. You need to have these systems which can capture that data en masse.
ACE's Role in Energy and Biodiversity in Cotton
00:20:34
Speaker
And so that's something which hopefully in the future we can sort of delve into a lot more. But for the time being, as we're sort of developing our foundations, it hasn't quite been necessary yet.
00:20:42
Speaker
How easy how difficult has it been to get farmers on board to run your pilots? I mean, there's a often a bit of pushback from farmers once you're you know trying to bring in these products that they have pretty low awareness for. Because I think that you know at the end of the day, it's their livelihood. And if you're trying to you know introduce them to new technologies and crops that fail, that could be a huge issue. And that was also a key problem, you know but which I touched on with relation to those India sort of mass suicides. They were all being given these genetically modified seeds, which which they were told were going to have all these benefits and they all failed, for instance. So this is something where in cotton, there's been you know a lot of large corporations coming in with these supposedly better products which have shown failure. But I think that what's really helped us is having that university trial data where it's been you know replicated, got legitimacy through that, and then from there, starting to approach farming cooperatives. So through those, they then represent farmers. And you know if you're going to them showing that there can be no overall yield improvements with these reductions and financial return for farmers, then they're always quite interested. And so it's sort of through them that they then diffuse us down to their growers. And that's happened with us through certifications themselves and through cooperatives. And so it's sort of through going to those sort of the top top of the pyramids, then sort of diffuse out, being sort of recommended to those growers through those cooperatives. It's been quite good. And, you know, we we worked with about 10 farmers last year and been getting some good data. Some data is, you know, a bit harder to actually start to to read and analyze once you're going from replicated, you know, sort of greenhouse or field trials into just just general fields where you're doing strip trials where, you know, there's a whole field and you're just given one one out of sort of 10 strips within it. it could be quite hard to then analyze that data because um different areas of different fields produce different yields. They have different nutrient availability and so on. So yeah, just getting to the point now, starting to try and delve into that a bit deeper, understand um a bit more about it. But yeah, I'd say the farmers are always pretty open to trying these new things. And I think especially how we've been trying to do is to try and give them you know free trials as we start, just that they can really see the product firsthand, understand it, and really get their own reassurance in it before they then start to adopt it at scale.
00:22:49
Speaker
Thank you so much, Felix. Catherine, I'd love to bring you in now. What problem in the cotton supply chain are you trying to solve? My background has been for like the last 25 years, has been working, looking at at the system, at the sustainability system and how do we sit it and particularly around the energy system. um And how do we deliver a just energy transformation from like a fossil fuel based system into a renewable system and a regenerative system? And sort of coming there as a researcher out of Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute and in the energy group, that's where Pileo works. got founded and we're working a lot with different corporates, um especially across the creative industries who've been working on thinking about their roadmap and their trajectories from how do they undertake in their current formation and how do they decarbonize over the next 20, 25, 30 years.
00:23:48
Speaker
into a more responsible corporate citizen that is driven by regulation. as we know, Europe and the UK have had some strong legislation around climate and support and drivers for decarbonisation. That has led many of these companies to start understanding where their environmental impact, especially their greenhouse gas footprint is. And then for fashion and textile companies, it becomes immediately clear that that is in their supply chain. So predominantly their emissions are not in their direct control. And
00:24:22
Speaker
you know As we've sort of in this conversation been establishing that cotton is for many textile and fashion companies, one of their main raw material fibers, and it's grown globally you know with India, South Asia, as Felix has highlighted, Australia, North America has also been key markets for the growth of cotton. And the industry has begun to understand that a significant, and I think it's sort of a third of emissions are at that farm level. So the industry really wants to transform and decarbonize its impact, it needs to look at farming and how it's undertaking that farming. But it also needs to recognize that it's not just about decarbonizing emissions. So especially when you're working and operating and sourcing in the global south, like um in South Asia, what you're also got to recognize a just transition is understanding the needs and the priorities of smallholder farmers whose greenhouse gas emissions are themselves per person very small. And what those communities need is access to energy. They need access to affordable, reliable energy. And as Felix has been highlighting, these um communities are under quite a lot of stress themselves experiencing the impacts of climate damage. And so they need support about building resilience into their kind of structures, their communities, their economies. um and And cotton is an important cash crop for these communities. But energy and clean energy is a ah foundational pillar for these communities. So having access to energy will open up opportunities for human development. So what I really wanted to do, and in fact, my early research when I was as as as a student was looking at many of these kind of clean energy transitions and how could in South Asia, how could they what's called leapfrogging, you know, so how could they avoid creating that fossil fuel infrastructure that we built up in Europe and go straight to a more renewable energy infrastructure? And then I wanted to really understand how could fashion brands support that acceleration of that transition. So both to deliver what the brands need, which is a decarbonization to reduce their carbon footprint reporting, which they've got legislation around in Europe and the UK, but crucially for the beneficiaries, the cotton growing communities, how could they be provided um clean energy? So we've been developing a business model solution that enables that investment of renewable infrastructure at the community level with the brands having the role of supporting ah almost like a subsidy to unlock the barriers, but for why communities aren't already adopting these technologies. and making it feasible for these communities to join up and um have access to that energy. So it's at one level been a lot around solarization within cotton growing communities.
00:27:21
Speaker
But also as Felix has been highlighting this important about resilience is also about thinking about both the soil and the soil diversity and ensuring that you've got all those good sort of activities happening in soil, but also what fashion industry is Increasing recognising in the agricultural industry that this is also about biodiversity in nature. So we've got a climate crisis and we've got a biodiversity crisis. And so the other part of our solution is really to support the enhancement and the investment of biodiversity solutions within cotton growing. Because if we can do that, we're creating also a more resilient crop that can also help
00:27:59
Speaker
absorb some of the stresses that we know that climate change is going to have and also create some additional income streams for these communities. So we wanted to create a solution that unlocked both climate and nature solutions for these cotton growing communities with social benefit. So we sort of see it as a holistic model and particularly working with smallholders who have farms the size of a football pitch. you know, very small farms and that needs to sustain them for both their cash crop, which is the cotton, but also their food crop. So have a really integrated approach and also to ensure that our solution is not top down. This isn't about like the fashion brands sitting in their headquarters in Paris or London or Milano. saying, okay, do X, Y, and B, but really more like a dialogue and understanding the needs and the priorities and that it's also bottom up because these farmers, they've been there for generations and centuries.
Consumer Confusion & Industry Challenges
00:28:57
Speaker
So they're really the land stewards here and they are the ones that have to feel ownership around these solutions. So they are a critical partner in the development of the solution.
00:29:08
Speaker
You set up ACE Village, also known as the Affordable Clean Environment Village program for cotton. You touched on this a little bit, but can you sort of explain on the ground, on a football field size farm, what does that actually look like, and the involvement of ACE? Yeah. Yes. So the ACE cotton program is really, first of all, we are working with farmers that are already involved in the certification scheme. So whether it's better cotton initiatives, organic or a regenerative like regen agri scheme. So this is, there's already some capacity going on and the the farmers are already undertaking some of these sustainable practices. but recognising that certification is almost like the minimum standard and there needs to be additional investment and mechanisms to support the kind of capital infrastructure investment. So the ACE farm programme then becomes like a layer cake within that certification programme. And the first thing we do is understand a needs assessment. So coming into a geography where cotton is grown, understanding what is the current state of the
00:30:13
Speaker
energy use, greenhouse gas emissions. So we're doing a baseline survey, understanding that use of fossil fuel infrastructure and the opportunity for adoption of renewable energy systems.
00:30:26
Speaker
And I think critically part of the ACE solution is understanding needs assessment that's both on-farm solutions. So that would be, for example, solar irrigation and then off-farm solution, which would be small enterprises that are happening within farming communities and household energy So many of these communities are still relying, for example, on cotton stalks for the provision of their cooking fuel, which can have health impacts or cow dung, you know, so quite low grade fuel sources, which impacts more. more women and cotton growing women's health and their children's health because they're involved in the cooking and also the labor and the time. So what we're really trying to do is twin both on-farm solutions, which will deliver those carbon accounting reductions that brands need into their reporting, but twinning it with the off-farm measures, which really build up the resilience. so that first stage is the assessment about where are the opportunities and where are the priorities of the community And then the second step is entering into contracting with the communities around the solutions that they want. So the farmers are organized into these farmer community groups. So we're working within their local governance infrastructure. And then that is because...
00:31:41
Speaker
The idea is the brands are just supporting the capital expenditure, but then there's an operational expenditure, you know, just like paying for energy, like we all do within our household. So it's it's kind of keeping those general kind of structures in place, because again, what we also know is that if anything is all given for free, it can get undervalued and that will be the same in the community.
00:32:05
Speaker
So that second step is really coming into contractual agreement, agreeing what is that capital expenditure. then there's the implementation of those solutions. So the physical, like putting in that solar irrigation pump, making sure that there's the aftercare, maintenance, the customer service. you know None of us like to have something that's fitted and doesn't work and we don't have the user manual for. So that's really critical. You're building kind of longer term relationships and we work with partners on the ground that are active and experienced and doing that And then the third part of this is really the reporting and understanding the impact, you know, are the solutions delivering as expected, you know, in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating jobs.
00:32:50
Speaker
opportunities? Are they creating space for nature? Are they improving women's livelihood? So this is around the metrics. So then we work with the fashion brands to really give the reporting to them through a software platform that makes it visible to them that their money is being put to good use and also gives that visibility to the community.
00:33:13
Speaker
And an example that I'd like to quickly share is we worked in a community that had no solar present when we did it, you know, and and low confidence within that solar technology, but through building and seeing a show and tell, farmers love a bit of show and tell like we many of us do. Then when came back into the village about 15 minutes later, i would say 60% of the farmers now all wanted similar, you know, and partly it was because a teacher within the community, a well-respected member of the community had benefited from the scheme. And people were like, oh, this really works. And it almost enabled that acceleration. So it wasn't that the brand was having to fund and subsidize the full community, but it it created that tipping point for wider adoption. And that's what the ACE program is about.
00:34:04
Speaker
Fantastic. And how does ACE sit alongside schemes like Better Cotton? You know, how are you sort of complementing their efforts rather than duplicating them? Yes.
00:34:15
Speaker
And we work closely with um the Better Cotton Initiative. um That's one of our key partners and where a lot of our... So we've been fortunate in developing this solution over the last five years has been benefiting from the Innovate UK Energy Catalyst, which has enabled a feasibility in a full-scale pilot in Pakistan with our in-country partner Samaverte on that project. So all our farmers have been within that Better Cotton initiative program. And Better Cotton has got six core principles around social, environment, decent work, for example, and climate change. And it's about conservation.
00:34:55
Speaker
at the core foundation is about capacity training of these farming communities and that data collection and supporting, you know, as Felix has been highlighting some of the sustainable practices in the growing of the cotton, you know, the seeding, the weeding, the harvesting.
00:35:12
Speaker
So we're coming along and doing that next bit, which is, around the investment and capital. So the the licensing program and the certification of Better Cotton doesn't actually have funds available to actually do the work. It needs the brands to do a partnership, that next level investment. And so this is the kind of way that our program would like dovetail in with the certification program.
00:35:37
Speaker
And then for the last three years, Pileo has also been the expert knowledge partner for biodiversity under the Better Cotton Initiative and developing the methodologies by which biodiversity is baselined within these farming communities. Then community biodiversity enhancement plans are developed with the community. So then there's all these opportunities that get surfaced through the baselining. But again, there's not the funding and financial resources within Better Cotton to do the plantings, maintenance, training on biodiversity. So the ACE cotton program comes along and gives that access to financing to do that. So, um you know, as the biodiversity knowledge partners um for Better Cotton, we've been able to develop those methodologies and that pathway to working with communities to undertake that investment. And for farmers, the business case, just like for the brands, has to be really clear, like, what do I get from this?
00:36:33
Speaker
and Felix again highlighted some of that in applying the bio stimulant of bio thread. Farmers need to know if I'm going to take a field that's not going to grow cotton and turn it into a tree orchard, where's my economics for that? You know what?
00:36:49
Speaker
What productive crop? Am I going to have a crop from that? Whether it's mangoes, oranges, limes, wood, you know, so you need to um present to the farmers something because especially for nature, it's not a season. You know, you have to think about allocating that field for five, 10, 20, even 30 years. So for farmers, they're smart people and they need to think about like, this going to work for our family business? And that's the work that we help under the Ace Cotton Programme. You mentioned, both of you, i think, mentioned Better Cotton quite a lot. I've got a swing tag here from a dress I bought recently at a sort of mid-range high street shop here in the UK. And this is what it says, investing in Better Cotton.
00:37:32
Speaker
By choosing our cotton products, you're supporting our investment in Better Cotton's mission. This product is sourced by a system of mass balance and therefore may not contain Better
Future of Cotton & Textile Innovations
00:37:43
Speaker
Cotton.
00:37:43
Speaker
So that last little bit there, i was like, oh, this is great. to like Then I got bit confused. This is what people are reading on their swing tags, you know, just a regular person going to buy things. They're coming across all these sort of information, but they don't maybe really understand it. So I was wondering if you could help us understand what that little statement says about mass balancing and how we educate the consumers about the incredible work that you're doing, the impact you're having. How do we do the storytelling in a way that really makes a difference to the consumers?
00:38:13
Speaker
Yes, so it's interesting. So the Better Cotton Initiative has sort of 2.5 million farmers around the world in an over 20, 21 countries. And predominantly Better Cotton Initiative is small growers, so smallholder farms. So those farms, as I mentioned earlier, might be just a couple of football pitches you know one or two football pitches so what you're then trying to do is gather that harvest from that cotton that then goes the next stage is to a jinnah which is the first phase of processing where you're decoupling the fiber from the seed and you can imagine you know so in a geography that we work with a one jinnah might be servicing 4 000 farmers who've got these well
00:38:59
Speaker
actually many more than thousand farmers so you're so then you've got to like be able to pinpoint just across so it's almost like taking an allotment size area and saying can I be sure especially if you're a big global brand that that is in my t-shirt my dress my bed linen and it's and it's a very and there's Felix was talking about the commodity supply chain and how cotton gets kind of turned into these bales at the Jinnah. And then it goes into this anonymous market. And oftentimes the brands don't even know where their country of origin is. So this mass balance is a way to say within a catchment area, we are confident that it's coming through. But oftentimes the brand will be part partly because of the procurement side of it, will be mixing products. maybe certified cotton and non-certified cotton to make that final end garment. So they might have a sense of the percentage that is certified and not. And just to say the moment, probably about a quarter of the world's cotton is certified with probably better cotton initiative representing about 90% of that certification cotton. The industry has a big role And they are doing a lot of work at the moment, looking at some of these traceability technologies, investing heavily. And I think especially with, as you mentioned, like satellite data, ai data, tagging data, that I really think over the next five years, we're going to have a much more, not just for cotton, but many agricultural products be able to have that
Felix & Catherine's Personal Insights & Reflections
00:40:34
Speaker
traceability. So as consumers and brands can have more confidence that we're sourcing at the farm level,
00:40:41
Speaker
both with environmental characteristics and social characteristics within the cotton. But yeah, that mass balance. And I definitely think as you've picked up on this language, even as someone who's working in the sustainability it space, it's a bit impenetrable. And I think partly, you know, for good reasons, the European Union is, you know, the Green Claims Directive is now really sort of ensuring that people use their words carefully because as we know language matters and I think it's a bit of a journey how do we unpack this especially when you're on shopping you're making quick decisions or you've got decision fatigue how we make it quick for the consumer to um understand what they're they're purchasing
00:41:24
Speaker
Thank Catherine. That was really helpful. Felix, now bringing you back in to this discussion, from technical and not even a commercial point of view, what are the hard limits you're pushing up against right now? you know, whether that's microbial formulation, traceability, as we just mentioned, or anything else? Is it finance, certification frameworks? Where are the challenges?
00:41:46
Speaker
Yeah, challenges in sort of my realm is that it just takes years and years of product validation before you're then really ready for sort of broader commercial rollout. I'd say that that's one key thing. And beyond sort of the university trials, there you get really robust data because you know it's replicated all of that. as I touched on briefly earlier, once you're then taking these products into the real world, then work with farmers to then get the data around that as well, it can be quite challenging. Because you know if you're doing it in a strip of one field and there's millions of fields out there, then it can just be, you know like in some of the trials that we did, we saw lower yields, for instance, even though we know that when it's replicated, we have high yields. And that just shows that you know within certain sort of circumstances, climate areas, stuff like out there that, there is this variability, especially within certain fields. So I'd say just try to really validate it and just get that same level of sort of robust data, actually taking it to the farm level, I'd say is a challenge. we And then another area where we've also...
00:42:44
Speaker
seen difficulty is that, you know, say if you're doing these trials with farmers at the moment, each of them was trialing our products of about 50 acres, which is quite a large area. But at the end of the day, you know, these farmers, especially in the US context, they are growing thousands of acres or hundreds of acres. And so if we're trialing our product on just a portion of that field,
00:43:03
Speaker
In their grand scheme of things, that's not that much of what they're actually growing. And so that was challenging for us because we were then looking to, you know, really try and get some brand partners to then bring this on board, take it to the next levels that actually have sort of a tangible product. Because, you know, when you're speaking to fashion brands, especially sort of sustainability teams, there's lots of the stuff when you're speaking about sort of soil microbial communities and the stuff like that is just not really on their radar. Yeah. um so in order to really get the sign off from sort of an engagement with fashion
Conclusion: Cotton's Regenerative Potential
00:43:30
Speaker
brands you really need to be you know hitting the kpis between their sort of sourcing teams their sustainability teams and sort of especially their designers and so you know within lots of these fashion brands it's all good developing very sustainable material but then as it moves up that funnel sort of through a pilot project it can then get to the designer it's just like i don't know how this feels i don't like how a it's sold into the product. So I'd say sort of around that, that is sort of, it's quite a complex channel of going sort of into a brand. But what we saw in this first year is because we're doing these sort of fragmented 50 acre plots, the farmers were then resistant to then take this to linking into what you guys were saying about mass balance, actually, the farmers were then not really wanting to separate this 50 acres of cotton that they'd grown with us and keep it separate from the rest of their cotton to then be able to then feed and can to keep it sort of segregated, to feed into a system, to then go to a brand with just, you know, the sort of 5% of their cotton, for instance. And so I'd say that that is that is a difficulty as we're challenging because often
00:44:30
Speaker
you know A farmer's selling all of his cotton at once to one place. That's then going off. And these brands, they're looking for very, very large quantities of cotton. So it's quite hard to actually be engaging at the sort of brand level until you've got a large enough acreage to to really be you know dealing with those players. And I'd say that that is sort of ah a difficulty scaling.
00:44:49
Speaker
And I can imagine this is a difficult story to tell ah an investor. if you say, you know, it's probably going to take 10 years to really start seeing any change. How do you shift that conversation with investors and how do you get them interested? Or has that been a challenge? You know, it doesn't it doesn't take 10 years, but I'd say we're sort of you know we've done two years now of trials. So in 2024, we did trials with yeah Mississippi State and University of California. Then in 2025, we did 300 acres of trials out in the real world. And that was with um Regen Agri and Staple Cotton.
00:45:23
Speaker
And so Regen Agri, the biggest sort of regenerative certification, Staple Cotton, they're one of the largest US co-operators. And so with them, we did about... Yeah, five farmers each doing about 25 acres. We then did trials with um Regenerative Organic Alliance, um who are the sort of the real leaders in sort of um organic. They work with the likes of sort of Patagonia. And then we also did about 100 acres between two different farmers with Cepima.
00:45:46
Speaker
And so they are actually different type of cotton, Pima cotton, which is the higher quality, um a longer staple, and that's the likes of cotton used by sort of Ralph Lauren and stuff like that. And I'd say that, you know, moving through, we also replicated trials with UC Davis again last year, but these things just take, you know, years to really, really, really make sure that the product is working, that it can be applied across different climates and soil types and all those things. And that, you know, the end of the day, I think it's also about responsibility, you know, I really want to be approaching in a way where we are getting all that validation and we feel that is then the right place to really be, you know, scaling and really commercializing it once we really, really know everything about the products.
00:46:24
Speaker
And so I'd say that it is a stage where you really have to, you know, just do the trials. It does take time and it can be a bit draining, but you have to get to know everything about it before you can then start, you know, selling this stuff to the farmers because of the end of the day, it's their livelihoods that you're impacting.
00:46:37
Speaker
So I think that that is a real sort of core, um you know, consideration of mine across this. You know, luckily at the moment, we haven't had to seek any external investment through the sort of the interlink to BioLevel, who's the company that has been making this for agricultural food crops. We're inherently linked to them. And so they really understand how this sort of process works and that it can take a long time. And so they've been, yeah, an amazing partner to have on board and really, you know, we're using their product, but I guess we're trying to open up to a whole whole new market for them. And they sort of understand that it can take time. You know, we're making progress. We scaled to 300 acres. Hopefully this year, we've got some very good data now on Pima cotton, especially. um And I think that, you know, when you're approaching brands, I think that it's probably those sort of premium brands who are charging more money for their clothing and especially really sort of marketing this premium cotton. And I think that if we're able to align ourselves with this premium cotton and saying that, you know, really we can really help with, you know, aligning you, say, with Pima cotton, say, with region agri or something like that, for instance, to say this is still well-grown Pima cotton or Cepima through that certification, but then getting that, you know, the sustainability credentials drawn into it as well. I think that that that's something which really interests me over the coming year. And so, yeah, I mean, it can be difficult, I guess, for external financing and stuff like that, just given the long-term nature of it. But it's something where, You know, it just is what it is really. And I think that, you know, you have to be very responsible when you're when you're looking at these sort of areas and trying to get these products to market, because, you know, if you rush it, as we saw in the case of India, things can be devastating.
00:48:03
Speaker
Absolutely. How about you, Catherine? What have been the challenges that you've faced? I think it's interesting. I think for us, it's kind of trying to present a holistic solution, which will build resilience of the cotton community and that sourcing security of supply into the future. But again, you know, it does take time. And as we know, within the the fashion sector, you know, one, the what they describe as the sort of carbon lens or the climate lens where that has kind of dominated the the conversation, you know, thinking about greenhouse gas emissions, green, and that is very important, no doubt, but it can't be and then negligence of other areas of these impacts. So, And how with brands who have over the last five years had to deal with a lot of market disruptions, both geopolitical, even the the COVID pandemic had all sorts of impacts for the global supply chain and now the consumer preferences in the legislation. So, The industry is confronted with a lot of big areas of impact, you know, to their business. So it's how to support them. I would say a big challenge is how to kind of widen their lens beyond just the greenhouse gas emissions and their net zero target. And then there's a sort of
00:49:26
Speaker
was highlighting earlier this importance that it is an energy transition, like mitigating climate change is about as quickly as possible stopping the use of fossil fuels. So that means, you know, anything that can invest in support that move to renewable energy as quickly as possible is going to be a benefit to the whole supply chain, but that can be quite a tough business case because sometimes, and especially in these communities that have very low carbon emissions, so you're going to increase their energy that will increase their resilience, but it might also increase their greenhouse gas emissions. So as we undertake so that can be a kind of slightly complex proposition to the brands.
00:50:06
Speaker
And then I would say is... that challenge of how do we move from, again, we also hear, how do we move beyond pilots? you know how we And everybody wants, and the industry talks a lot about wanting more than pilots. And ultimately, I think that requires some join up and collaboration.
00:50:25
Speaker
And whether that's joining forces with other brands who are working in cotton fibers or with other agricultural stakeholders within a landscape. So there's some really interesting work going on at the landscape level. So how do we partner up with water companies, infrastructure, you know, transport infrastructure? And so I think This is part of it, like helping our platform and solution is about a partnership model that's got kind of cotton as the central force, but also saying the challenge is can we join up other partners and work in new ways that we haven't worked on before?
00:51:02
Speaker
And I think, you know, at the top of this conversation, we were talking about the importance for so for centuries that cotton has shaped empires. And it it kind of is very illustrative of capitalism, right?
00:51:14
Speaker
you know It's been part of creating the modern day capitalism. And I think it could be exciting for cotton to be seen as could we create a new economy that is a more distributed economic and economy? And can we present some new ways of working and have the comfort? to bring in a new economy into cotton and reshape the world again, but in a much more sustainable, regenerative, resilient way. And that it is a challenge, but I think it's an exciting one for us to solve.
00:51:48
Speaker
Absolutely. I love that, Catherine, the vision that we have. Maybe we can read redo how we do business, starting with cotton again. so moving slightly off from cotton.
00:51:58
Speaker
Well, cotton is cellulose fiber. How do you see the rise of sort of man-made cellulosic fibers like Tencel, Lysol? In fact, on the same swing tag I had, it had Tencel in it as well. So I was like, this dress has everything in it. ah You know, how did these or even the newest, you know, sort of cellulose fibers that are being extracted from other waste streams, food waste streams that are being kind of used as source for extracting cellulose fiber.
00:52:27
Speaker
I'd love to get your thoughts on how this sort of rise and demand for MMCF, man-made cellulose fiber, impact your business. And do they really meaningfully reduce the pressure on cotton agriculture or do they really just change the conversation slightly about the environmental and social burden that's on the system?
00:52:48
Speaker
I would suggest that they're more about diversifying the land use, you know, so there's lots of competing needs for land, you know, so whether it's for fibers or food production or land use or infrastructure, you know, homes and etc. So it's, I think there's that first conversation of like, how can the textile and fashion industry minimize its land footprint overall, you know, because because what we need to ensure is Yeah, we've we've got a finite planet, a finite land. And so we, it's not an ever expansive thing. So I would say there's that starting point. Then there's also saying every material has environmental and social impact. So just like we've been talking today about those social and environmental impacts of cotton. That same work needs to be done on these man-made felo-elastic fibers, which is being done, which will have some similar pain points to cotton, some different pain points to cotton. And so those kind of supply chains need to do that. And I would say for the brands, they obviously need some coherency across that. They need it to be some general principles across. And this is why some of the kind of international frameworks and legislation and tools and science can help that. So it's a similar methodology, but maybe
00:54:13
Speaker
different risks, opportunities, interventions and outcomes. And then i would say, and this again, why I think cotton is a really interesting one, any biomaterial, you know, some of them get look really exciting. You know, some of these new materials, very exciting. but they're still very small supply chains. So at any scale, every material is going to have challenges at scale. And so they can look really exciting at small scale, but they will run into the same challenges. And that's why I think, again, cotton can be seen as benefit. We have got so much of the infrastructure and supply chain. just So rather than saying, actually, we need to shift out from cotton, let's
00:54:54
Speaker
make cotton as good as possible and any of the other offerings because as Felix has also highlighted, you want fabrics with different technical properties, different uses. So we need, you know, we need an option. We we can't, it's not a monoculture. And that's, I think, what makes textiles and fibers such an exciting area to work with because we want diversity. We want diversity in what we want and we want the right material for the right performance and use. And again, I think this is helping the brands understand what are you really trying to achieve here? but What does your customer really want? Let's work and innovate and develop those supply chains.
00:55:34
Speaker
Felix, anything to add there? i mean, i'm I'm all for it. you know Anything that's coming through which is ah an alternative to all these fossil fuel-derived fibers, I think that we just really need that at this moment in time. you know I think ah can't don't have the exact stats off the top of my head, but I think it's around like 60%, 70% or something like that is now fossil fuel-derived fibers. And i think that now, especially with the uptake of ultra fast fashion, all these things, it's only going to go in one direction.
00:55:58
Speaker
And especially, you know, one thing which I've been looking at recently is, you know, I think in the long term, it's actually be very risky for brands to continue to be using natural fibers, which I think is a shame. And that's something which is going to be built into their financial planning and basically general risk assessments, you know, If there's global commodity markets with cotton, I mean, you've seen it with cocoa, for instance, for chocolate, is that you've seen, and coffee, you know, because what you're seeing is direct impacts of climate pressures causing crop failures at a large scale, which means that these commodities just absolutely spike in price. And this is something which, you know, it's not too abstract to think about happening happening to cotton literally within the next 10 years, you know. All it takes is a couple a couple droughts or floods or just, you know, extreme weather,
00:56:41
Speaker
being combined with declining soil health, that these are very real risks. And so I think that anything that's able to come up and provide a good alternative to fossil fuel derived fibers, which isn't necessarily based on, you know, agricultural output.
00:56:54
Speaker
I think that that is something which we really need to come to fruition a lot more because that is going to be reliable in the long term. And if it really can come to scale, then that's going to be pivotal in trying to, you know, just, yeah, cut back on the use of these fossil fuel derived fibers.
00:57:07
Speaker
And just to quickly say, I think also the ACE model, although we've developed it for cotton, it could have adaptions and replications for other fibers. So I've been working on wool, for example. So what it's like to me, i'm but you know, Pileo were particularly interested in natural fibers and seeing them as as part of the solution in um the fashion ecosystem. So, yeah, it's so it's a model that wool could be applied to other fibers.
00:57:33
Speaker
So you're both part of the current Evo Fashion cohort, Fashion District. Could you tell us a bit about what you've gained and learned from this experiential program? What have you enjoyed and what's been tough?
00:57:44
Speaker
What I've really enjoyed is that I think it's very nice to be, you know, engaging with other innovators that are in a similar position to you. what I've really enjoyed is that they broke the cohort into sort of groups where every couple of weeks you'd have ah a check-in, you'd share what your issues are, because, you know, these are people who are are facing a lot of the same challenges as you and have been through a lot of it and have the answers in a lot of cases. So I think that the very sort of collaborative and sort of um community approach of it has been really amazing.
00:58:08
Speaker
What has been a challenge with it? hasn't really been too many so far. i think at times, you know, you put a bit out of your sort of comfort zone and stuff like that, having to do all this sort of pitching and some of these sort of tasks that you have to do. um You know, it's all natural. And I think it's part of your progression as a as a sort of founder and an entrepreneur, innovator, that these are all skills that you have to develop. So though initially they might not be easy for you, I think it's something that, you know, you just have to get used to. And that's been actually a really good part of it.
00:58:33
Speaker
And Catherine, what's been your experience? Yeah, well, it's been really exciting to meet some of the you know up and coming, really exciting companies that are coming into the space with a passion and a real sense of possibilities of how we crack some of the challenges within the fashion sector.
00:58:56
Speaker
And then I think it's great that it's in London. You know, London has got, I've done quite a, you know, been ah in the enterprise space for a lot. And I think London is a, got both the fashion industries, it's got the education sectors, it's got that kind of access to finance, to government. So you're kind of in the heart of it and you're pulling together this cohort that will be really interesting to track over the next few years, how we all get on in our journeys of taking our solutions to market. So it's definitely like we're going through those similar pains and we're all working across the kind of diversity of needs of the fashion sector. So that's been really interesting and inspiring. And then I think the program, you know, it's it's been quick, you know, it's been, um you know, four or five months.
00:59:45
Speaker
But the content, and I've been involved with a number of accelerator type of programs over the years, but I've just really appreciated the quality of experts and specialists that have contributed from whether it's legal, marketing, pitching, and also just having that kind of the human, that that well-being element, you know, and it was really nice. This week we did a session looking at pitching, but also worked with Ginny, who was is a dramatist and really helped and think about a little bit about the performance and how you breathe into this and have confidence so that you can like really engage whether it's an investor, a customer or a team member in the work that we're doing. So I just think it has been really thoughtful in terms of the content. So I feel much better equipped and also having been able to have a number of my colleagues join in on the sessions too so as a team we can like really apply the materials and the thinking yeah it's been extraordinary I'm conscious of time so we're going to run through some of these questions a bit quicker a little bit about your background then where did you grow up and what was life like when you were young just to get to know you a little bit personally Felix
01:00:56
Speaker
I grew up, so my family um lived down in the Cotswolds actually. So I grew up around there and between there, i coming to London every now and then, but you know, it was beautiful, very peaceful. And I think that, you know, um but upon reflection, I think that that's something that's incredibly important for children to have, you know, being around nature and, you know, really connecting with nature. Otherwise,
01:01:15
Speaker
when you grow up, lots of these kids today, I think like, especially growing up in cities on their smartphones all day and stuff like that, I think they just lose that connection to the environment and to nature as a whole. And through that, they then don't really think about their impact on nature and the role that they play in, you know, being an environmental steward and all these things. So I think that that's something which I'm incredibly grateful for and something which I hope one day if I have children that, yeah, they'll really be able to be supportive of it too.
01:01:39
Speaker
That's lovely. Thank Catherine? So I would say I'm very transatlantic. um I grew up in London. And then when I was a teenager, moved to Washington, D.C. because of my dad's job. And my mom was actually a lecturer in weaving and textiles. And so really introduced us to this idea of fibres and creativity and design and thinking systems. So my dad being very analytical, intelligent. development economics, my mum being much more in the creative textiles and you know and and being involved in some of the like you know extraordinary weaving tradition here in the UK. And then through their work, had this really international perspective. My best friend is Pakistani American and that's why you know spending lots of time in her home really kind of tweaked the curiosity and interest about South Asia. So did my undergraduate thesis looking at women's time allocation in rural Chhikwal in Pakistan, and then did a sort of program in India looking at this clean energy transition. And then my parents were in Bangladesh. So I suddenly sort of that South Asia transition,
01:02:52
Speaker
region and and the needs and the deep cultures of that region and also the relationship that Britain and the US s has had to that, you know, whether it's the British Empire, the American slave trade and stuff. So I think some of that kind of equity relationship of the past, but still exists today. i'm really thinking, you know, how can kind of be a positive energy force in this contribution and marry up my kind of science world and this like the love and relationship of culture and textiles It got me kind of, it's how I've navigated my way into the fashion community.
01:03:28
Speaker
Fantastic. It's just a quick fun question. I believe textiles has the power not just to be functional, but it can fulfill our soul and our senses as well in a very deep way, very intimate way. So could you share with us about a garment or a piece of textiles that you hold very closely to? you It has deep value, meaning it might not be something that you wear or use anymore, but you still hold on to it. Is there a story?
01:03:53
Speaker
ah Well, I do have a piece. So my mom wove for my 40th birthday a piece and it is, and and I live on a canal boat. So, and it has this kind of relationship to the ocean. So it's got like, I think 23 different techniques into it. So, now and it's got all this natural fire. It's kind of dimensional. And so when I think about my mom and mom,
01:04:19
Speaker
The gratitude I have for her to introduce me to this world. And and then it's, yeah, and it tells a story about kind of where I live and where I am in my life at the moment. So we have this it's just a kind of inspiration piece.
01:04:34
Speaker
Oh, it's beautiful. i want to see that someday, Catherine. And you, Felix? Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of pieces that I have, including there's maybe this one jacket. um It's an old Prada jacket, actually. And so this is yeah going back to when I was probably about 11 or 12, I went to a secondhand store and managed to find it. And I was so impressed that i was able to get this this jacket from Prada for, it was about 60 pounds or something like that. And so I think that back then just really understanding just circularity within fashion and that, you know, you can get the nicest piece of clothing for so cheap if you're just willing to buy them secondhand. And that's something which really then followed me through my early career. I set up a business with a friend, basically buying and selling streetwear and designer from Japan. And that's something which I still bring through to this day. I shop
01:05:19
Speaker
predominantly on sort of vestiaire or buying secondhand pieces. And I think that sort of through buying that first item, you know, lovely designer item for such a fraction, a fraction of the cost and even cheaper than going to, you know, a high street brand to buy a new jacket. I think that that was something that just stuck with me. And, you know, I'd say it really changed my whole perspective on fashion consumption, you know, instead of going and buying things new by secondhand, you can spend the same, if not less and get a piece of clothing, which will last you decades, you know?
01:05:46
Speaker
That's a great message for all of us to take. And thank you for bringing in circularity into the conversation as well. Last question. Any big wins in 2025 that you're very proud of? And what are you looking forward to in 2026?
01:05:59
Speaker
We got nominated for the 2025 Earthshot Prize um by the Center for Sustainable Fashion, which is amazing. Just to have our work validated by Dilys Williams and such an amazing team there who are real leaders in this area. I think that you know operating within this niche is sort of one-man team. It came quite lowly at times. So to have that sort of recognition by some big people within the industry who you know really understand it and to see you know the benefits of what we're doing was, yeah, inspiring.
01:06:25
Speaker
Congratulations. That is a huge achievement. And what are you looking forward to in 26? In 2026, I am looking forward to hopefully scaling our acreage, getting to work with some new farmers and really building up those foundations that we have from last year. I think that, you know, we've got some more robust trial data back now. And I think it's about building on those partnerships, which we form the basis of to try and really scale it and to try and integrate in, you know, some more sort of sustainability initiatives, sort of linking with those certifications and stuff like that, which is um exciting.
01:06:55
Speaker
Good luck. We'll keep an eye on that. Catherine, what happened in 2025? So in 2025, I feel really proud of the work that we've done in Pakistan with our partners, Samaberti, and with the support of the Better Cotton Initiative and ww WWF. So I think the fact that we've designed the ACE model and validated it within that pilot as we close out our energy catalyst program. And in 2026, it's going, you know, really shifting and ramping up a gear from this research and development phase into the kind of go to market phase.
01:07:35
Speaker
And that we, yeah, because at the end of 2025, we signed a contract with a well-recognized British high street brand who are now going to be running and doing Ace Village in India. And so what really excited is building the collaborations and partnerships and kind of, yeah, undertaking Ace in India. That's the big focus in 2026. Fantastic. Good luck with that as well.
01:08:04
Speaker
Well, I guess we're going to have to wrap up for today. and just a little closing note, I think cotton may never return to its sort of former glory, but it remains the quiet king of textiles. I really believe that. And it's been wonderful to hear both of you and how you're transforming the lives and the lands of people who farm this extraordinary material. I think you're paving the steps to a future in which cotton not only clothes us, but regenerates the soil it grows in and creates real wealth and dignity for the communities who work so hard to cultivate it as well. So thank you so much for your hard work and for your time with us today. it was lovely. I learned so much.
01:08:41
Speaker
Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed it.
01:08:48
Speaker
Wow, what an inspiring conversation and just so down to earth. What I'm taking away from this conversation is just how much possibility there is when we stop treating cotton as a cheap commodity and start seeing it as a living system. For me, three things really stand out.
01:09:07
Speaker
First, the future of cotton begins in the soil. Regenerative practices and microbial innovations can genuinely cut fertilizer use, improve yield and rebuild soil health, which changes the risk and reward equation for farmers rather than just asking them to do better on their own.
01:09:26
Speaker
Second, climate and livelihood have to be tackled together. Clean energy and biodiversity investment in cotton villages are not just add-ons, they are essential. They're what makes decarbonisation real. And third, brands and consumers still have enormous power in the story. The choices we make about how we source value and talk about cotton will decide whether it remains a driver of extraction or becomes a force for regeneration and dignity in the years ahead.
01:09:56
Speaker
A couple of past episodes that might complement this one, which I would like to recommend, ah maybe episode 25, Turning Agri-Waste to Cellulose Fiber ah with Amanda Parks. This dives into waste to cellulose innovation and next-gen fibers, and a perfect complement to thinking about the future of cotton and alternative solutions really to cotton fiber.
01:10:19
Speaker
and then we have farm to fiber. Again, another episode where we look at potato plant waste being converted into cotton like fiber and yarn. So do check those out. I hope you enjoyed this episode and learned something new. Please share this one with anyone who might find it inspiring or valuable.
01:10:36
Speaker
Your support to spread the word about this podcast is deeply appreciated. If you enjoyed this episode, consider buying me a coffee using the link in the show notes. Thank you for joining me today. Stay tuned for more episodes. Don't forget to subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of textiles, technology, craft and sustainability.
01:10:55
Speaker
Until next time, I'm your host, Millie Tharakin, reminding you that there's no such thing as ordinary cloth. Every thread tells a story.