Achieving sustainable cotton production is critically important for millions of smallholders around the world who rely on cotton incomes for their livelihoods. But there are challenges relating to the over-use of fertilizers and chemical pesticides, including dangerous ones, which has negative environmental and human health impacts. Working conditions for informal workers on smallholder farms often fall short of decent work measures.

Business and trade are increasingly globalized and global companies thus have a growing impact on the lives of poor people in developing countries, whether as employees in companies or in increasingly, long and complex supply chains, or as community members, whose livelihoods and environments are affected by corporate actions in diverse ways: the environmental impacts of corporates can be localized (e.g. local air and water pollution), and global in nature (e.g. contributions to Greenhouse Gas Emissions and climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation). While business and trade create jobs and contribute to national economies, the underlying business case for irresponsible business remains strong, and social and environmental impacts continue to be externalized.

The Trade and Global Value Chains Initiative (TGVCI) was a £4 million fund mechanism (2013 – 2016) supported by the UK Department for International Development. Its purpose was to leverage private sector investment and changes in corporate behaviour to socially benefit workers and smallholders, while also providing benefits to suppliers and retailers - benefits that would catalyse further investment and corporate behaviour change as competitor companies copied new approaches (termed ‘crowding in’. This briefing presents the key findings of a programme evaluation to inform donors, companies and researchers.