At DECATHLON, we design and manufacture our products since 1986.
Given cotton is used in a large number of our products, it’s our responsibility to take a scrupulous look at its origin and its impact, as well as explain it to you!
Although it's a natural produce, cotton farming has an environmental and social impact.
These impacts are mainly linked to the huge amounts of water required to grow cotton. They are also linked to the use of pesticides, which impact biodiversity, contaminate the soils, and also affect the people that grow and harvest it.
To play a part in reducing these impacts, we are committed to getting our supplies through three more sustainable sources:organically grown cotton, BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) cotton, and recycled cotton. Cotton from sustainable sources today represents 95% of the cotton used at DECATHLON.
We started supporting the Better Cotton Initiative in 2012. The recommendations supplied by this organisation enable us today to source cotton that reduces the environmental impact and integrates a wide range of social measures during its farming. Click here to find out more about the BCI.
The BCI initiative is sometimes controversial because it authorises the use of chemical inputs in cotton growing. It, however, enables us to progress towards our objective: 100% of cotton from more sustainable sources.
At DECATHLON, BCI cotton represents 82% of the cotton used in our products.
Organic farming consists of not using chemical fertiliser to grow produce. It preserves biodiversity, soil fertility and reduces the risk of groundwater contamination. And lastly, it ensures workers don't come into contact with pesticides, which are bad for health.
Organically grown cotton currently represents 11% of the cotton used by DECATHLON.
It is possible to create new cotton fibres by retrieving clothing having reached the end of its life cycle or manufacturing fabric offcuts. It is known as recycled cotton. However, to preserve its durability, these recycled fibres are always mixed with virgin cotton, in other words, which is new.This method, nevertheless, greatly reduces the impact linked to conventional cotton farming because the impact has already taken place.
Recycled cotton represents today 2% of the total amount used by DECATHLON in its products.
We are well aware that our actions have an impact on sports users' playground. We play an active part in the sport. We are subsequently duty-bound to put in place sustainable solutions to continue providing products with technical features that are more environmentally friendly. Today organic and recycled cotton form part of our eco-design approach.
