On the opening day, Wednesday 17 March, the conference clears the way for an extensive look at cotton, its economic importance, and sometimes unknown directions of use in the session ‘Cotton – A Wider View’. Banknotes from Sustainable Cotton Bernadette O’Brian from the Directorate of Banknotes at the European Central Bank in Frankfurt (ECB) is responsible for the environmentally friendly and healthy, as well as forgery-proof production of banknotes.

• The 35th International Cotton Conference Bremen will take place in just a few weeks, on March 17 and 18.

• Under the motto ‘Passion for Cotton!’, the Bremen Cotton Exchange and the Fibre Institute Bremen e.V. (FIBRE) have created an innovative digital hybrid edition which will enable the international cotton industry to gather on a virtual conference platform.

In her lecture, ‘The Use of Sustainable Cotton Fibres in Euro Banknotes’, she examines the Europe-wide banknote paper manufacturing practices, including the supervision of the manufacturing processes, as part of the ECB's global sustainability strategy.

3D database for fabrics and dyes – digitisation ensures more use of cotton

The lecture by Mark Messura, Senior Vice President, Global Supply Chain Marketing, Cotton Incorporated, Cary, USA, deals with a supply chain that is increasingly characterised by digitisation. Cotton Incorporated has built a unique database system that gives designers around the world access to hundreds of cotton fabrics in a wide variety of yarns, weaves, and colours. All fabric samples are digitised and available in 3D.

• Digitisation here means that the physical properties of a tissue and its components such as strength, texture and drape are converted into electronic information.

• This information can then be used for product development in 3D design software programmes.

• Designers can try out hundreds of fabrics and colours and styles quickly and easily without travelling or shipping.

Africa's Textile Value Chain at a Glance

Navdeep S. Sodhi, partner at the globally operating consulting company Gherzi Textil Organization AG, Zurich, Switzerland, describes the existing structures of the African cotton textile value chain and analyses the opportunities and risks of economic development. The African cotton textile industry is highly fragmented. It lacks connections to upstream stages such as cotton growing, ginning and domestic marketing.

• Less than 20 percent of the cotton produced in Africa is processed into marketable products on the continent, while the rest of the raw material is exported.

• Opportunities for change are seen in a historically observed trend towards the relocation of textile production to less developed countries.

In principle, international buyers’ interest in increasing the proportion of sustainably produced cotton textiles from emerging regions is growing. This increases the chances of foreign direct investment.

• The International Cotton Conference Bremen – the Hybrid Edition offers a total of 13 conference sessions covering highly relevant topics from the international cotton textile industry.

• A new feature of the virtual format is the possibility to choose between two parallel lecture strands:

The ‘Conceptual Track’ deals with current challenges and fundamental issues within the industry, while the ‘Technical Track’ is mainly devoted to technological and scientific developments.

All sessions are characterised by great opportunities for interaction. In addition, the ‘Interaction Track’ provides the opportunity for break-out sessions, poster presentations and individually organised virtual table discussions. A digital matchmaking service, business speed dating and extensive opportunities for discussion groups during breaks round off the networking offers. In addition, the virtual platform makes it possible to send questions to speakers at any time and to arrange to meet interesting contacts for video or audio calls.

For more information on these features click here.