GOTS, the Global Organic Textile Standard, certifies textiles made with organic fibre and covers the whole chain from ginning to finished product, including the chemicals used in processing, environmental management and social criteria. Indian home textile makers can supply it, and India has one of the largest numbers of GOTS-certified facilities in the world, with many spinners, mills, dye houses and stitching units holding certificates. The buyer's job is to make sure the certificate covers the product, the facility and the transaction, not just the company name on the letterhead.
What the standard covers
Two label grades exist. The grade labelled organic requires at least 95 percent certified organic fibre, while the grade labelled made with organic requires at least 70 percent, and the remaining fibre must meet rules on what is allowed. Beyond fibre, GOTS restricts the dyes and auxiliaries that may be used, sets requirements for wastewater treatment and includes social criteria based on international labour conventions.
Every processing stage, from spinning to sewing, must be certified for the final product to carry the label, so a single uncertified dye house breaks the chain. This is the point most often missed: a stitching unit with a certificate on the wall is only part of the answer, and the fabric it buys must come through certified operators too.
Scope certificates and transaction certificates
- A scope certificate is issued to a facility and lists the processing steps and product categories it is certified for; check that the stitching unit and each upstream mill holds one that is in date.
- A transaction certificate is issued for a specific shipment and confirms that the goods moved from one certified operator to another; ask for it for each order, since the scope certificate alone proves nothing about your goods.
- Verify both on the GOTS public database rather than relying on a PDF sent by the supplier.
- Confirm that the product category on the scope certificate matches what you buy, because a certificate for yarn does not cover finished sheets.
- Check whether the certificate holder has been suspended or withdrawn, which the database shows.
Practical points when buying GOTS from India
Certified organic cotton is more expensive and less available than conventional cotton, and prices move with the organic harvest, so lock in fabric early for seasonal programmes. Units often run organic and conventional lines in the same building, which the standard allows with segregation, but it is a point worth seeing on a visit rather than taking on trust.
Accessories such as threads, labels and zips have their own rules, and the right to use the GOTS logo on your retail product comes through the certified supplier and the certification body, not automatically with the goods. If you want the organic claim on a label, build the certificate requests into the purchase order so the paperwork arrives before the container does. Textile Exchange standards such as the Organic Content Standard are a different scheme, covering fibre content only, and are not interchangeable with GOTS.
How we handle organic orders
We visit the stitching unit and the mills behind it, check scope certificates on the database and chase the transaction certificate for each shipment before loading. We keep one approved supplier and one backup so a lapsed certificate does not stop your programme. If you are planning an organic range, we offer a free 20-minute sourcing review.