U.S. Regen cotton recorded greenhouse gas emissions of 1.73 pounds of CO2 equivalent per pound of cotton, 20 percent below the 2.17-pound baseline, in the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol's first results for its regenerative programme. The pilot covered 33 growers farming 59,094 harvested acres across 469 fields in seven U.S. cotton-growing states, and the Trust Protocol announced the findings at the Textile Exchange Conference in Vancouver on Thursday.

The 2025/26 outcomes report also flags 30 percent more modelled soil carbon storage per pound of cotton and 75 percent lower annual soil loss per acre — 2.2 tons against a baseline of 8.9 tons. Irrigation water-use efficiency came in 49 percent higher, measured as cotton produced per cubic foot of irrigation water. That's a productivity metric, not a 49 percent cut in total water use.

What do the numbers actually compare?

Buyers reading the report should note the baselines. For emissions and soil-loss reductions, the programme measured pilot fields against Trust Protocol data that included fields without soil health practices. For carbon removals, it drew on a national measurement, reporting and verification dataset covering both regenerative and non-regenerative practices.

In other words, the results describe the pilot's performance against reference datasets. They don't establish that the same farms improved by those percentages over a previous season. The findings combine validated field-level data, scientific models and satellite monitoring. Staplcotn and Plains Cotton Cooperative Association collected the data, and every participating field was digitally mapped and linked to a Farm Service Agency farm number.

Growers qualified under requirements covering soil health, water use, synthetic inputs, water quality and biodiversity. All of them had nutrient management plans, used integrated pest management and worked beneficial insects into pest control. Practice adoption split by region and preference:

• 91 percent used reduced tillage or no-till
• 56 percent planted cover crops
• 91 percent of participating acreage scored above 0.7 on the Habitat Potential Index, which the report links to wildlife habitat and native plant diversity

How can brands label U.S. Regen cotton?

A September update now lets brands identify U.S. Regen cotton content on product labels. Approval hinges on sourcing records: which verified farms supplied the cotton, how bales were segregated and tracked, and whether purchase and sales volumes align. "Regenerative status reflects verified practice adoption at farm and field level," the framework states.

The guardrails are strict. Members can't call U.S. Regen cotton "certified regenerative," imply a finished garment is regenerative certified, or attach quantified environmental benefits to an individual product. Claims that cotton in a specific product came from a named farm or grower are also off-limits.

So a brand can't take the pilot's 20 percent emissions figure and claim a shirt has a 20 percent smaller carbon footprint. The Trust Protocol demands longer-term evidence and additional verification before allowing claims of progress toward regenerative outcomes — and its rules exclude the 2025 pilot from that category.

What does this mean for sourcing?

U.S. Regen began as the Field Partner Program pilot for the 2025 crop year, connecting growers with mills, brands and retailers through bale-level verification and supply-chain traceability. In March, the Trust Protocol opened the programme to broader commercial participation for the 2026 crop year. Participating merchants, marketing cooperatives and self-marketing growers supply the fibre through Field Partner Programs.

Under the controlled-blending option, products must contain at least 50 percent tracked U.S. Regen cotton, rounded to the nearest whole number. Brands must state the percentage and explain what the regenerative designation means, on the product, via a QR code, or on a digital product page.

"Growers are making long-term investments in the health and productivity of their farms, while also adapting regenerative practices to their unique growing region," said Marjory Walker, co-director of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol. "U.S. Regen supports those efforts through a consistent framework that measures outcomes, verifies practices and provides traceability to the bale."

Her co-director Liz Hershfield framed the programme as a direct response to demand from the buy side. "The U.S. Regen offering is a direct outcome of hearing from brands that they are looking for regenerative cotton that is credible, practical and scalable," Hershfield said. "U.S. Regen connects the work growers are doing on the ground with verified traceability to support brands' sourcing goals."

For sourcing teams, the decision the news forces is narrow: U.S.-origin regenerative cotton with bale-level traceability is now commercially available for the 2026 crop year, but any on-product claim must stay inside the protocol's labelling rules — percentage disclosure, no certification language, no per-product footprint maths.