GOTS and OEKO-TEX certification - what’s the difference?

Both GOTS and OEKO-TEX standards are excellent ways to help verify the claims of companies selling organic baby clothes. Both certifications ensure that the materials used are free of harmful chemicals, and made with ethical standards. GOTS certification ensures the material is organic from field to final product, that sustainable and ethical business practices are used and items are labelled appropriate to their level of organic material content. OEKO-TEX certification is more focused on ensuring harmful chemicals are not present in the material. The combination of certifications ensures the crop used in the material to the final processing and selling of the product is free of harmful chemicals. (And then the product is potentially shipped to you in a plastic bag and cardboard box filled with chemicals, but c’est la vie!)

OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100

GOTS - GLOBAL ORGANIC TEXTILE STANDARD

• Organic fibers are natural fibers grown without the use of synthetic pesticides, or herbicides and GMOs

• entire organic supply chain is covered, from harvesting to manufacturing and trading

• a product labelled "organic" must contain a minimum of 95% organic fibre

• a product labelled "made with organic" must contain a minimum of 70% certified organic fibre

• only low impact GOTS Approved Chemical Inputs free from hazardous substances are allowed to be used for the processing of GOTS Goods

• the textile needs to be free from more than 100 substances known to be harmful to human health. The standard takes into account the following

• Legal regulations, such as banned AZO colourants, formaldehyde, pentachlorophenol, cadmium, nickel etc
  

• Other harmful chemicals that are not yet legally regulated

• adheres to European Chemicals Regulation

• Requirements from the US Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) regarding lead.