When my children were born it was a clear commitment, all clothing would have to carry the “organic” seal. It was not just an expression of a lifestyle and commitment to the Earth, it was a way of life that seemed self-evident. While in the early nineties I still had to search half the world to find certified organic childrenʼs wear, today even mainstream shops carry organic clothing, especially for children. While I still have to pay a premium price like twenty years ago, the products are easily available since an increasing number of brands around the globe pride themselves offering earthy products. Some even go beyond the farming without chemicals and pesticides and even embrace the natural colors emerging from diverse seeds of cotton. It was Kathrine Tiddens, the owner of the Terra Verde shop in the trendy Soho (New York), one of the first distributors of my biodegradable detergents who alerted me of these pastel colors emanating from the wealth of biodiversity in the world of cotton.

My suitcase was never big enough to carry my enthusiastic purchases across the Atlantic.

On a recent visit to China I learned that the Government of the worldʼs largest producing cotton nation decided to phase out cotton. The reasoning followed a clear logic: the land area reserved to produce 32 percent of the worldʼs cotton should not provide a raw material for clothing, the land and its massive water reserve that made cotton viable and competitive should be reserved for producing food. Protein instead of fibers. The Chinese offer an insight into a logic that should prevail in all our production and consumption decisions: why waste water on clothing, when food is the priority? Whereas we have debated the use of biofuels that increase the cost of food, especially when subsidies divert corn from tortillas to gas station, we have never debated fibers diverting land from food.

All cotton, even organic cotton requires excessive amounts of water which should be dedicated first and foremost to provide food security and nutrition. Substituting cotton for organic cotton does confirm that we eliminate the chemicals, but cotton still relies on water. And while eliminating chemicals is a great step forward, it is not enough to push society on a pathway towards sustainability. When Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the outdoor wear brand Patagonia embraced organic cotton, he soon embraced also organic hemp. The production planning in the worldʼs most populous nation foresees soon 1.9 million tons of hemp, part of this major shift away from cotton.

There should be no doubt that the additional two billion people on Earth will need to be dressed. However, the limited resources and the carrying capacity of our Earth needs to be aligned with emerging demand. And while the biologists have embraced chemicals, and even genetic manipulation to respond to the needs, a smarter option emerges that goes beyond the fiddling with nature through control mechanisms of genes and a few seeds, rather to search for solutions within the regenerative resources that biodiversity offers. After all, cotton originated from the Americas, but 63 percent is farmed in China and India stressing the water reserves that even the United States does not have anymore. It is not good enough to have genetically modified cotton that requires less water, all water that is sustainably available should be dedicated to provide food security.

The question is: what else is available beyond hemp? Time has come to explore the abundant local resources, and hemp is a first obvious option. Hemp and kenaf along with flax produce quality fibers that last, grow prolific on poor soil and have an appetite for water which is only a fraction of the thirst displayed by cotton. While the processing of hemp, kenaf and flax is still dependent on water, the overall performance is a multiple better. Time has come to create a portfolio of solutions.

China offers once more an interesting strategy. During the 2008 Olympics, the Chinese Military was called in to clear two million tons of algae blooms from the water bodies around Qingdao that were threatening the open water games. This emergency situation during a high profile event provided an insight into the potential of algae. After all, these prolific protoctista feed on excessive nutrients and require no additional input. On the contrary, these grow in rivers and seas without ever needing fresh water as an input. Actually the processing is about removing water - not consuming water. It did not take long before the clarity into the subject motivated Chinese entrepreneurs and policy makers to join forces and set up a research project right after the Olympic Games to create the first alginate-based textile fiber factory in the world. The conversion of 20 million tons, and the potential for farming beyond the harvesting of blooms suggests that China could substitute all its fiber needs with these blooms. A cost (removing the bloom) is converted into an income without the need for any land area. The economics of new fibers could hardly be better.

A quick tour of the world confirms that countries like Ireland and Norway in Europe, South Africa and Namibia in Africa, the islands in the Chinese Seas stretching from Philippines to the Korean Peninsula could provide a natural source for fibers that could release 25 percent of the worldʼs irrigation waters and relinquish the pumps and the energy required to move the water around. We should embrace a broader search and identify all the natural fibers that could meet demand without stressing this thin crust that sustains us. The regions characterized by temperate climate and void of rivers and seashores full of prolific algae growth seem to have forgotten another tremendous potential: nettle (Urtica dioica).

Considered a weed around the world, it is time this prolific plant that thrives in poor conditions in the wild is rediscovered and celebrated as part of the portfolio of fibers that will release water resources and dramatically reduces our dependency on chemicals to dress the world.

Nettles do not compete with food crops. Observing its presence, it does not even need to be planted. Since it is a perennial, once growing it only needs harvesting, no planting or nurturing. It is so easy to grow that it is embarrassingly simple compared to the industrialization of cotton. The productivity is convincing: each hectare produces three to four tons of nettle fibers indicating that 320,000 hectares of existing non-productive land areal is sufficient to offer one million tons of cotton substitutes. This means that a piece of foul land the size of Belgium is enough to provide a quarter of the worldʼs demand for fibers. It is time to reassess the potential of harvesting nettles just about anywhere. The attraction is - nettles hardly need to be propagated to proliferate. We not only save the water, we save the chemicals and the seeds while generating the jobs producing a long lasting quality fiber that was already the preferred raw material for the European royals in the Middle Ages, and remains the core fiber for the menʼs dress code in Bhutan and Nepal today.

And there is more: nettles are rich in nutrition, especially iron. This plant even contains the biochemicals that relieve arthritis pain, and shed body liquids known and practiced since the 10th century AD. At a time when we need to search for multiple benefits while simplifying our streamlined production and consumption patterns, the processing of nettles into fibers offers an opportunity to propose a completely different business model than the economies of scale and monocultures that have dominated our business mind. Our strategy to substitute cotton could contribute to a dramatic improvement in our food intake. Indeed, the best way to prepare the fibers would be to cook a good nettle soup, serve the nutritious content, and use the left-over fibers - now cleansed of impurities like potassium and calcium from the textile producersʼ point of view - as a raw material for clothing.

We need to adopt this logic in order to steer our societies towards sustainability while generating jobs, and release massive water bodies so that we can finally convert this continuous syndrome of scarcity into sufficiency and even abundance. Nettles could grow without competing for quality farmland while it offers a nutritious meal. While there are multiple benefits which are tough to be translated into monetary terms, there are also multiple cash revenues which allow nettles to make a broad economic and social contribution offering healthy food at low cost. This is exactly the shift we need: diversify the resource base, generate jobs through higher value and provide a healthier food base. Nettles are just one of the opportunities - once we drop the blinds that have been imposed on us by outdated economic models, we will discover many more opportunities offered to us by this wealth of biodiversity we are barely starting to discover. And the wealth does not have to be hidden in an endangered species, it could be hiding in a weed under our feet.

This means that the label “certified organic” will evolve to “certified generating multiple benefits”. It implies that we move from telling the customers what was not used, like pesticides and fertilizers, we tell the buyer what could all be produced ranging from healthy food to quality fibers that last for 50 years. The world does have a bright future, provided we look at the solutions, and do not burry ourselves in the problems.