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GOTS Pre-Conference to IFOAM Organic World Congress - Hot Spots on Social Compliance
The GOTS Pre-Conference to 19th Organic World Congress of IFOAM - Organics International conference in New Delhi, India on 8th November, 2017 was first of its kind, solely focused on ‘Social Compliance Issues in the Organic Textile Supply Chain’. More than 80 high profile attendees and speakers from twelve countries - including Scholars, CSR Managers and HR Representatives of companies, Certification Bodies, Standard Setters, Government and NGOs discussed about hot spots like Income Equality within countries and globally, Land Grabbing, dealing with non-compliances or how certification as a diagnostic tool could be supplemented by instruments or measures which provide a measurable continuous improvement process.
Three main outcomes were agreed to put to larger scale in presenting them in Track 7.A of the 19th Organic World Congress (OWC) by the GOTS Representatives Christopher Stopes and Satoko Miyoshi:
1. Social criteria in sustainability standards help improving working conditions. Improve standards with measurable criteria and keep inspection/certification as a diagnostic tool.
2. In addition or – if possible – in combination find and apply suitable aspirational approaches and tools.
3. Find and apply efficient means to draw the big brands and retailers into utilizing their responsibility for sustainability of the textile industry.
The GOTS approved independent Certification Bodies report more than 1.4 million people working in GOTS certified facilities.
 read our conference report
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GOTS Regional Round Table USA February 2018
We would like to invite you to register for our Regional Round Table "Making a Business Case for GOTS Certification". This one day event is scheduled to be held on Wednesday, 27th February in Charleston, South Carolina.
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GMO Testing Method Project conceptualised by GOTS
In 2016, GOTS determined through a limited round-robin exercise that test results for GMO presence showed inconsistency and were unreliable in cotton fibre. Thus, we initiated and conceptualised a project to determine testing protocols for GM presence in cotton fibre and downstream products. This project is being fully funded by OCA (Organic Cotton Accelerator) and will be taken forward by OCA as an ISO-IWA (International Workshop Agreement) through the NEN (Netherlands Standardisation Institute) who will act as the secretariat. It is expected that the exercise may take between 8 and 12 months depending on the scope accepted by the ISO.
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Lower Licence Fees for GOTS Logo used with Approved Accessories
Logo use by approved accessory manufacturers (buttons, zippers, lace etc.) has been permitted by GOTS against payment of a licence fee since May 2017. The licence fees that were defined referred to chemical input manufacturers and GOTS has decided to clarify that accessory manufacturers will pay a licence fee 25% of that stated for chemical input companies. This would benefit approved accessory companies in using the GOTS logo (under prescribed rules only) for their approved products.
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Special limited time 50% reduced Licence Fee to use the GOTS Logo for Approved Additives
This special, one-time concession for chemicals and accessories will be available until 30 June 2018. This licence fee is for voluntary use of the GOTS logo as explained in Chapter 6 of the GOTS Licensing and Labeling Guide and is in general payable at first approval to each general new version of GOTS (general revisions of the standard are scheduled every 3 years) at first registration and covers the time until the next version of GOTS comes into force. Over 15,000 chemical inputs have been approved for use in GOTS certified entities through GOTS CBs.
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GOTS settles trademark lawsuit in the US
GOTS settled its most recent trademark enforcement lawsuit which was filed in the United States against mattress retailer Keetsa, Inc., of California. The lawsuit was settled amicably without admission of liability. The case was filed in the Southern District of New York and was titled The Global Standard gemeinnützige GmbH v. Keetsa, Inc., Civ. No. 1:17-cv-02568.
GOTS is continuing its enforcement efforts to ensure reliability and accuracy in use of the GOTS certification mark for the textile industry, including mattresses, fashion, and all textile products. Fraudulent GOTS claims should be reported to the GOTS Complaint Procedure.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Program (USDA’s NOP) on May 20, 2011, issued a Policy Memorandum regarding “Labelling of Textiles That Contain Organic Ingredients” that clarifies how organic fibre-containing products may be labelled. Textile Products that are produced in accordance with GOTS may be sold as “organic” in the US.
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GOTS-certified facilities reported well-operated under China's crackdown on environmental pollution
China's economy has long taken priority over other problems such as environment, and yet this has been changed fundamentally with the central and local governments launching a series of environmental inspections since 2016, responding to the rising concerns towards smog and contaminated soil.
In 2017, China has launched several rounds of environmental inspections, completing the coverage of China’s 31 provincial-level regions. Ten thousands of factories were permanently shut down where government inspectors found a really bad situation and the Management are in legal trouble. Some were closed temporarily subject to further rectification. The others were either under further improvement or relocated. For instance, Hangzhou City in Zhejiang Province, traditionally the hub for printing and dying mills or regenerated fibres announced that it would either shut down or relocate most of these mills in the next 3 years and restrict the number to 19. For most of China's frontier practitioners in textile industry, they have experienced the toughest year ever in the history. Many believe that China's textile industry is experiencing biggest transformation ever which leads to a "New Normal".
China has been an important producing country for GOTS. In 2016, there were 269 GOTS certified facilities in China, ranking the fifth country worldwide in terms of the total number of certificates. China also became the country with the second largest increase in GOTS certification in 2016 (68). To understand better the current status of GOTS certified facilities in China under this context, GOTS sent out a small-scaled survey to existing GOTS certified facilities regarding the challenges they encountered with during this series of inspections. The findings are positive. So far, all GOTS-certified facilities are functioning well with no one reported shut down, relocated or suspended. This is further confirmed by the GOTS approved certifiers in China such as Control Union, ECOCERT and CERES. This demonstrates GOTS serves as an effective and efficient risk management instrument for environmental and social risks of the facilities. It also ensures the mills to be in compliance with stringent domestic environmental inspections. However one of the concerns raised includes that the processing and manufacturing capacity of some of the printing and dying houses might be restricted in order to meet the targets set by the local governments.
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Christopher Stopes appointed as Representative to the European Union
GOTS has placed an increasing focus on European regulatory and policy issues with the objective to work towards a position where the fibre production, processing, manufacture and labelling of intermediate and final textile products should be according to recognised standards and subject to independent third party inspection, verification and certification. In view of this development, GOTS has decided that representation towards the EU institutions and European organisations in the organic and the textile area is necessary in order to enhance our work towards this goal.
Christopher is also continuing his ongoing tasks as Representative in the UK. In his function as Representative to the EU his main tasks are to serve on recently established IFOAM EU Textile Task Force, Lobbying the EU Commission and the EU Brussels based organizations.
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Job Opportunity: GOTS Protection Officer
We are looking for a Protection Officer (part-time) who will operate from home with occasional travel.
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GOTS becomes newest ZDHC Accepted Certification Standard
We very much welcome the fact that since inception, the ZDHC Roadmap to Zero Programme decided not to develop its own certification system for ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL) conformant chemistry to accelerate the global impact of the organisation. ZDHC instead leverages existing certification bodies as indicators of ZDHC MRSL conformance. On 5th of December we became one of the ZDHC Roadmap to Zero Programmes Accepted Certification Standards. GOTS approved chemical products will from now on be conformant to ZDHC MRSL Level 1. While GOTS prohibits an even greater number of chemical groups, we are pleased that ZDHC has formally recognised GOTS approved chemicals because this leads to more efficiency for the operations on their Roadmap to Zero.
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GOTS Included in the Italian National Action Plan for Green Public Procurement (GPP)
In 2014 a reform of the EU's public procurement law resulted in the Directive 2014/24/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on public procurement. For the first time public procurers could use some voluntary sustainability standards as a proof for the fulfilment of performance criteria required in their specification. On basis of this legal framework a number of European countries have developed guidance in this area, in the form of national GPP criteria. In the Italian GPP decree, GOTS is explicitely mentioned as acceptableverification for products made with organic fibres.
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New Turkish Version of the GOTS Simple Show Clip
GOTS' entertaining four minute video made by Simple Show is now available in English, German, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish and Turkish. GOTS is explained using very simple and engaging story line graphics. The two main objectives are to make clear that only using organic fiber is a step in the right direction but not enough and that only if a product shows the GOTS logo with the license number and certifier's reference one can be sure that it is GOTS certified. You can watch the video on the GOTS website or embed it from Youtube.
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Seasons Greetings and very best wishes for a peaceful new year!
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