Oeko-Tex Association, a leader in textile product and facility certifications, has made a new addition to the product portfolio by introducing Made in Green by Oeko-Tex – a traceable product label, which allows for communication throughout the supply chain all the way to the end-user.

The label has been created to ensure that made in Green textiles are not only tested for harmful substances (certified according to Oeko-Tex Standard 100) but also sustainably produced in accordance with Oeko-Tex guidelines.

The label can be awarded to any kind of textile product anywhere in the world at any stage of the textile supply chain. With the Made in Green label, brands, manufacturers and retailers have the chance to promote their responsible practices to their customers in a clear way on point-of-sale material, the association reports.

Benefits

With this label, each product can be easily traced, thus offering new levels of transparency throughout the supply chain, all the way to the consumer.

Every Made in Green label has a product ID and/or a QR code, which shows where the product was manufactured. Depending on the data release granted by the supply chain, the labelling system can provide information on the production sites in which an article was manufactured, which production stage the individual factories belong to and in which country the manufacturing took place.

Guidelines

For textile products that consumers buy at retail, the Oeko-Tex guidelines for obtaining the Made in Green label are as follows:

• Any single component that equals or exceeds 5% of the total weight of the textile product must be supplied by STeP by Oeko-Tex certified production facilities. At least 85% of the weight of a single piece of textile must be supplied by STeP by Oeko-Tex certified production facilities.
• The general rule for the above mentioned criteria is that all the making up and wet / chemical processing facilities have to be STeP by Oeko-Tex certified.
• The product must be Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certified.

For intermediate products sold within the supply chain, the label issuer must be STeP by Oeko-Tex certified and fulfil all of the above mentioned criteria.

During the Made in Green by Oeko-Tex launch phase, all critical making up and wet/chemical processing facilities must comply with the requirements stated above. Ultimately, in order to receive the Made in Green label, all facilities in the remaining processing stages will meet the requirements for STeP certification.

Manufacturing process for textiles

To support the launch of Made in Green, Oeko-Tex has introduced a new consumer website, which can be found at www.madeingreen.com. The site enables interested parties to discover more information about the label.

The site will also be available on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. It features the ability to track labelled textiles using a product ID and/or QR code. Visitors without an ID or QR code can use the demonstration function Test without product ID, which shows visitors the type of information available relating to the production facilities involved in the manufacturing of a particular article.

www.oeko-tex.com