If you are a trader, manufacturer or processor in the textile supply chain; getting yourself GOTS certified is a must nowadays if you deal with organic cotton or any other organic fabric. Without this certification, your product will not be trusted by the customers as everyone now looks for the GOTS approval on organic textile products.


There are many GOTS-approved certifiers and their details can be found online. The applicant needs to get in touch with their local certifier and put forward the request for certification. The certifying body gives the cost estimate for the entire process of certification which varies depending on the location of the unit, the size of the business and many other relevant factors. To be successfully GOTS certified, the processor, manufacturer or trader must go through the strict set of on-site inspections and residue testing by an approved certification body.


The certification bodies that carry out the auditing must be GOTS-approved by the International Working Group on Global Organic Textile Standard (IWG). These certification bodies themselves are constantly monitored based on IWG’s own accreditation system.


GOTS does not set the standards for the cultivation of the organic cotton itself. This is done by the specific governmental organic farming standards and varies from country to country. The criterion for organic cotton (or other organic fibre) to be an approved organic fibre is that it must have been approved by a government body which is accepted in the country where the final product is to be sold. The certifiers of the organic fibre must be recognized under ISO 65 and/or IFOAM accreditation. But once the organic farming standards are met and approved by the particular government bodies, the raw material is accepted as approval raw material for a GOTS certified product.


There onwards the entire textile supply chain is inspected annually to be granted the certification. All operators who are involved in the processes from the post-harvest stage to the wholesale trading stage need to undergo the annual inspection cycle to hold a valid certificate. Only such products can be sold by retainers as GOTS certified products. They must meet all the environmental standards alone with the minimum social criteria. Residue testing is also conducted on all the units involved in manufacture and processing of the organic textile. Auditors make a risk assessment and get all the residues analysed at ISO 17025 accredited laboratories.


Once your manufacture or processing unit is GOTS certified, you can freely advertise the certification in the market. But care must be taken to not use the certification for a particular product or process as the comprehensive certification for everything that the unit does. Such confusion must be avoided in all kinds of publications and advertising. Getting a GOTS certification for an organic cotton product is certainly not very easy as the auditing is very strict and a lot of criteria must be met. The GOTS certification lends a certain amount of transparency to the entire supply chain and the end customer can trust that they’re paying for a truly ‘organic’ product and not just a fake version of the same. To gain the customer’s trust, getting this certification and advertising it well is important.
When purchasing organic textile products, you must trust only those brands which are GOTS certified http://www.purple-orchard.com/About_Us . One of the most popular organic fabric is organic cotton http://www.purple-orchard.com/Organic_Sustainability which is used greatly in making clothes for newborns, toddlers and children.