Swiss-based sustainability group Better Cotton said on Thursday it has added new functions to a platform that big retailers use to trace materials through their supply chains. Better Cotton said retailers including Walmart and Marks and Spencer will be able to tell where cotton was grown and traded, eventually to the level of individual farms. Currently the platform tracks only the total volume of cotton produced. Jacky Broomhead, Better Cotton senior manager, said the current functionality is much like an electrical customer who knows the sources of generation feeding their local grid, but not to individual houses. “The changes mean you’ll you know what you’re getting. You’ll be able to see the journey the cotton has taken to you as a retailer,” she said. Created by companies and several nonprofits including the World Wildlife Fund, Better Cotton aims to support improved practices in areas like water and soil stewardship and to promote better working standards. It says it supports 2.2 million farmers globally, accounting for 22 percent of world cotton production.