Hanes and U.S. Cotton: A Long History
PRODUCT STORIES
For more than 100 years, HanesBrands has sourced most of our cotton from U.S. farmers. This in turn has been converted into yarn in the U.S. by U.S. workers.
It’s a matter of visibility and trust. Since we own a significant portion of our manufacturing operations, we have a much closer line of sight into the raw materials that go into our products, unlike nearly everyone else in the apparel industry. All told, the U.S. cotton industry’s reliability and commitment to quality have, for decades, supported our sustainability objectives and reduced our business risks.
We see four key benefits to U.S.-grown cotton:
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- U.S. cotton is governed by a robust regulatory system. Environmental and workplace regulations are strictly enforced by state and federal agencies, with both civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance. Farmers face extensive reporting and inspection requirements, making comprehensive sustainability measurement a central component of the industry.
- The U.S. Permanent Bale ID (PBI) system provides great visibility into our cotton supply chain, assigning a unique ID to every cotton bale that indicates where it was grown, the gin where it was processed, and which USDA classing office tested its quality.
- Research has shown that U.S. cotton growers have continually and dramatically improved in terms of land and water stewardship, minimizing pesticide use, and implementing farming practices that actually sequester carbon in the soil.
- An immense amount of data and third-party resources go into supporting the continuous improvement of the U.S. cotton industry and its farming practices.
Since we own a significant portion of our manufacturing operations, we have a close line of sight into the raw materials that go into our products.
For these reasons, we rely on U.S. farmers for the majority of the cotton we put into our products and have partnered with them on projects to further advance their environmental performance. For example, HanesBrands recently partnered with the University of Georgia on a project to promote the increased adoption of soil moisture sensors by cotton growers and to increase irrigation water-use efficiency. Knowing where our cotton comes from lets us target these types of projects to specific growing regions, giving us confidence that we’re driving improvements in our own supply chain.
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