A group of 11 companies currently selling cotton products in a variety of industries, including apparel, housewares, agriculture and personal care, have come together to form C4, the California Cotton & Climate Coalition.
Led by Fibershed, White Buffalo Land Trust, Torus and Materevolve Consulting, C4 is based on a pre-competitive form of collaboration and aims to create a structure for investment in regionally grown Climate Beneficial Cotton.
The coalition will work specifically in the unique California bioregion, where it is estimated that the soil has lost critical amounts of carbon from its original, natural storage. This loss is significantly driving the imbalance of the carbon cycle and directly contributing to climate chaos.
Through the coalition, founding brands Coyuchi, Mate The Label, Outerknown, Reformation, and Trace have joined together to source cotton directly from farmers who have converted to climate-friendly practices. This cotton will be used to develop products that will be released over the next year, the purchase of which will directly support the livelihoods of the farmers who grew it.
These practices are meant to provide the opportunity to sequester measurable and additional amounts of atmospheric carbon in the pedosphere, the soil carbon pool.
The research and findings from this project aim to create a roadmap for the additional 187,000 acres currently growing cotton in California.

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