Global Organic Textile Standard expands

22 Feb '16

4 min read

text-decoration:none;text-underline:none">Asheboro Elastics, Denver Mattress Company, Draper Knitting, O Ecotextiles , Soaring Heart Natural Bed Company, The ErgoBaby Carrier, and United Medical Enterprises. The companies make a wide array of products, from personal care products to fabric, mattresses/bedding, and accessories. In addition, in 2015, MOM’s Organic Market, a chain of 14 grocery stores in the Washington, DC area, instituted a policy effective January 1, 2016 requiring that all “organic” labeled textiles sold in its stores must be certified to GOTS and properly labeled with the GOTS logo, license number, and label grade for full traceability purposes. GOTS believes that this is the first grocery chain in the world to have instituted such a policy.

According to the Organic Trade Association’s most recent Organic Industry Survey, the market for organic textiles is the most rapidly growing non-food organic category in the US, growing to $1.1 billion in sales in 2014. The sector grew 18 per cent in 2014, its strongest growth since 2009. Much of this growth is the result of the 2011 US Department of Agriculture policy requiring companies labeling their textiles as “organic” to certify their products to the US organic food standard or GOTS, as well as grocery retailers urging their suppliers to become certified to GOTS.

GOTS is a stringent voluntary global standard for the entire post-harvest processing (including spinning, knitting, weaving, dyeing and manufacturing) of apparel and home textiles made with organic fiber (such as organic cotton and organic wool), and includes both environmental and social criteria. (SH)

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