Artistic Milliners launched a more comprehensive initiative aimed at solving the issues of scalability or traceability in the cotton supply chain. The organization is now designing a strategy to support Pakistan’s organic cotton in Baluchistan, which is called the ‘bio valley.’ In the district of Punjab, Pakistan, Rahim Yar Khan calls for visibility and empowerment by women through the entire supply chain, the latest project, the Milliner Cotton Project, is taking place. It also involves building capacity for gainers and encourages extortion prevention activities. Though there have been several programs that aim to improve certain areas of the cotton supply chain, Milliner Cotton is the first to focus on the entire scope, from picking to spinning.
Omer Ahmed, CEO of Artistic Milliners said “there is a wealth of durable cotton standards and programs on the market. “Nobody considers the supply chain of cotton to be a whole ecosystem and proposes interventions focused on the dynamic interconnections between all supply chain players. This is the purpose of Milliner Cotton. Milliner Cotton has accomplished 13 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs) of the United Nations ( UN) and especially benefits women cotton pickers. Via the scheme these staffs have access, in collaboration with WWF Pakistan, to the teaching of life skills, to access to the alternative livelihood program. In the process of regular trips, the main team of creative milliner often deals closely with staff.
The program stresses also the need for textile traceability and the business is in talks with various technological partners to help chart the cotton journey — a demand-rising phenomenon in the face of a rising need for transparency in the supply chain from an increasing number of customers and partners. In the third year of the initiative, the introduction of traceability technologies will begin. In addition to traceability, the initiative, for women cotton pickers, focuses on the upgrade of technology for ginner’s consultancies and on mechanical and other more successful cotton processing methods.
Artistic Milliners also plans a direct action to support Pakistan’s organic cotton, along with the Milliner Cotton Programme. The Milliner Cotton Initiative and Pakistani Sustainable Cotton initiatives all cover various facets of the sustainability of the cotton supply chain. In modern history, the organization partnered closely with the UN. Since 2018, she has been a member of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and was named a pioneer of the SDG in 2019. She is a signatory of the Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEP), UN Women’s and UNGC, which encourages companies of encouraging fair representation between men and women in the job, in the economy, and in the community.
