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Comparison of Governance Structures in International Sustainable Cotton Standards Systems and China's Path Selection

Author(s)

Nannan Yang, Min Li

Affiliation(s)

Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology, Beijing, China

Abstract

The global cotton sector has witnessed the rapid proliferation of voluntary sustainability standards whose credibility depends less on their criteria than on their governance structures. This paper compares the governance of the Better Cotton Initiative, organic cotton certification under the Global Organic Textile Standard, Fairtrade cotton, the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol, and China's emerging system of CCIA-certified sustainable cotton and digital traceability, using an analytical framework drawn from transnational private governance theory. Four governance dimensions are examined: standard-setting authority and stakeholder representation, assurance and verification, traceability and data governance, and accountability and market recognition. The comparison shows that systems trade off input legitimacy, assurance rigor, and traceability capacity in systematic ways. China's path selection should therefore combine a national standard and certification backbone with whole-chain digital traceability infrastructure, third-party assurance under national accreditation, and active alignment and mutual recognition with international systems, thereby avoiding the legitimacy deficits that have constrained purely market-driven schemes.

Keywords

Sustainable Cotton; Standards Governance; Certification; Traceability; China

References

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