The environmental impact of the global textile industry is hard…

The environmental impact of the global textile industry is hard to overstate. One-third of the water used worldwide is spent fashioning fabrics. For every ton of cloth 1, 200 tons of water is polluted with chemicals and heavy metals. An estimated 1 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity powers the factories that card and comb, spin and weave, and cut and stitch materials into everything from T-shirts to towels, 2 behind mountains of solid waste and a massive carbon footprint.

"Where the industry is today is not really sustainable for the long term," says Shreyaskar Chaudhary, chief executive of Pratibha Syntax, a textile manufacturer based outside Indore, India.

With something of an "if you build it, they will come" attitude, Mr. Chaudhary has steered Pratibha 3 the leading edge of eco-friendly textile production. Under his direction, Pratibha began making clothes with organic cotton in 1999. Initially, the company couldn't find enough organic farms growing cotton in central India to 4 its factories. To meet production demands, Chaudhary's team had to convince conventional cotton farmers to change 5 growing methods. Pratibha provided seeds, cultivation instruction, and a guarantee of fair-trade prices for their crops. Today, Pratibha has a network of 28,000 organic cotton growers across the central states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Orissa.