“The aim of the standard is to define world-wide recognised requirements that ensure organic status of textiles, from harvesting of the raw materials, through environmentally and socially responsible manufacturing up to labelling in order to provide a credible assurance to the end consumer.”
– The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS)
It means that for something to be labelled as GOTS certified, it has to meet specific criteria. This criteria is extremely involved and covers the processing, manufacturing, packaging, labelling, trading and distribution of all textiles made from at least 70% certified organic fibres.
The Global Organic Textile Standard goes into great detail about what this criterion involves (which you can read here!), but the takeaway is as follows:
Fibre Production
Fibres must have organic certification based on a recognised international or national standard (eg. IFOAM family of standards, EEC 834/2007, USDA NOP). A textile product carrying the GOTS label grade ‘organic’ must contain a minimum of 95% certified organic fibres whereas a product with the label grade ‘made with organic’ must contain a minimum of 70% certified organic fibres.
Processing & Manufacturing
The processing and manufacturing are broken up into the following categories, each with their own specific criteria; Environmental, Technical Quality and Human Toxicity and Social.
Environmental
Every stage of the manufacturing process has to be carefully monitored and meet strict requirements to ensure that the environmental impact is as minimal as possible.
Technical Quality and Human Toxicity
Raw materials, intermediates, final textile products as well as accessories must meet stringent limits regarding unwanted residues.
Social
All processors and manufacturers must meet the critical norms of the International Labour Organisation (ILO). They must have social compliance management to ensure that the social criteria are met at all times.