Make Cotton Sustainable

India's Green Entrepreneurs

Across the world, India's 'green entrepreneurs' are building on the country's large organic and sustainable cotton-growing base to build enterprises both at home and abroad.

In Freemont, California, the Green Creation founder Smitha Prasad knew the demand for organic baby clothing first hand, having searched for affordable products to the point of frustration for her two young children.

According to the IndUS Business Journal, Prasad launched The Green Creation in March. The Fremont, Calif.-based company designs and manufactures organic cotton clothing products. Currently its focus is on baby clothing: bodysuits and pants for infants and T-shirts and pants for toddlers. The company also sells baby accessories such as wash cloths, bibs, towels and blankets. The Green Creation is trying to keep prices as low as possible with all clothing items set at $13.99 and accessories ranging from $4.99 for wash cloths to $29.99 for blankets, currently the company’s most expensive item.

The clothes are manufactured in India in two factories, one in Kolkata and on in Tamil Nadu. The clothes are shipped out of a distribution facility in Fremont.

A similar inspiration lay behind Sameer Joshi's starting of the Funkoos Organic Baby Apparel line. When he started looking for organic clothing for his own newborns in 2008, he came away disappointed with the consistent combination of high prices and low quality they found. He and his co-founders got entrpereneurial and started Funkoos Organic Baby Apparel in order to give new parents the choice of high quality, affordable organic clothes for their young children.

Funkoos has local representatives in India where its products are manufactured and the quality control products on the assembly lines during manufacturing helps keep quality high and lower prices by reducing the risk of rejection during the final inspection phase, says Sameer Joshi in an interview to greenbuildingpro.

In India, entrepreneurs are going back to India's Khadi roots to propagate sustainable cotton. MINC fashion store in Bangalore is promoting eco-friendly fashion by using organic cotton, vegetable-dyed fabrics, and khadi.

Mini Shibu, a post graduate in apparel design from NID, and her husband Cdr (Rtd) Kochery C Shibu launched MINC, an eco-friendly fashion store for women. The concept “was to promote eco-friendly fashion, working with khadi fabrics, organic cotton and vegetable-dyed fabrics, while supporting a social chain of tribal cotton farmers, weavers and dyers community, therefore, trying to facilitate a healthier environment” , says the DNA.


The store offers MINC toujours and MINC petite for young girls and tweens, which are the labels from the studio Mishan designs in Bangalore.

The sustainable cotton story is not limited to retail chains. Cotton yarn manufacturing companies in India are also finding strong market support for sustainable cotton.  Cheslind Textiles Ltd., a maker of cotton yarn that supplies to brands including Victoria’s Secret and Calvin Klein, has increased production of organic cotton yarn by 33 percent to meet rising demand from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and lingerie retailer Victoria’s Secret, reports Bloomberg.