Global Recycle Standard update

Textile Exchange, which administers the new Global Recycle Standard, has introduced what it says is a “minor but important” change in GRS version 2.1, according to the April/May 2012 issue of Ecotextile News.  (If you’re wondering what the Global Recycle Standard is all about, please see our blog post on the subject:  click here .)

The new change removes the allowance for the use of pre-industrial waste.  The Version 2.1 will only recognize pre-consumer and post-consumer waste.  This change was made because the Textile Exchange has determined that pre-industrial waste does not meet the Federal Trade Commission requirement for recycled input – which is that in order to be considered a recycled input, it must have been diverted from the waste stream.  An example of such pre-industrial waste that does not meet the criteria for being diverted from the waste stream is that of short cotton fibers which fall out of cotton during the spinning process;  the fibers are scooped up and re-introduced into the spinning process.  In terms of polyester, an example would be that of a manufacturer collecting plastic pellets that have spilled onto the manufacturing floor, washing them and then feeding them directly back into the same manufacturing process without reprocessing.

Both of these examples are considered an efficient manufacturing procedure and standard industry practice, not recycling.

Interpreting these pre-consumer recycled content claims can get very specific and technical.  Underwriters Laboratory has published a handy White Paper entitled  “Interpreting Pre-Consumer Recycled Content Claims: Philosophy and Guidance on Environmental Claims for Pre-Consumer Recycled Materials”.(1)

The new GRS standard becomes effective June 1, 2012.  All companies being newly certified to the GRS will be required to use the new GRS v.2.1, while companies with existing GRS v2 certification will be able to maintain their current status until the end of the validity date of their certification.

Textile Exchange is currently working on Version 3 of the GRS, and they say it will be more stringent than the current version, with further refining of definitions for inputs that can be claimed as recycled input and additional requirements for chemical inputs.

(1)  http://greenerul.com/pdf/ULE_whitepaper_July2010.pdf

LEED and human health

Does living or working in a LEED certified space mean that you are safe from building contaminants – or does it promote a false sense of security?

A study published by the nonprofit,  Environment and Human Health, Inc. (EHHI),  in May 2010, emphatically claims that you are not safe.  The lead author of the study,  Dr. John Wargo, is professor of environmental policy, risk analysis and political science at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.  He is also an advisor to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  This  study outlined why  LEED, which has emerged as the green standard of approval for new buildings in the United States,  largely ignores factors relating to human health, particularly the use of potentially toxic building materials.   As Nancy Alderman, the president of EHHI, told BuildingGreen.com, “it is possible to build a LEED building and have it not be healthy inside, and we’re saying this needs to be fixed.”[1]

Many of the chemical ingredients in building materials are well known to be hazardous to human health. Some are respiratory stressors, neurotoxins, hormone mimics, carcinogens, reproductive hazards, or developmental toxins. Thousands of synthetic and natural chemicals make up modern buildings, and many materials and products “off-gas” and can be inhaled by occupants.   Dr. Wargo points out in a blog posting on Environment 360, that one of LEED’s major accomplishments — saving energy by making buildings more airtight — has had the paradoxical effect of more effectively trapping the gases emitted by these often toxic chemicals used in today’s building materials and furnishings.  

He makes the case that LEED puts almost no weight on human health factors in deciding whether a building meets its environmental and social goals.  And he calls for a comprehensive Federal law to control the chemical content of the built environment.

Many sectors of the economy, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides, are highly regulated by the federal government to protect public health. But the building sector — which now produces $1.25 trillion in annual revenues, roughly 9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2009 — has escaped such federal control. The lack of government regulation is explained, in part, by the building industry’s enormous financial power, but also by its recent success in creating green building and development standards that give the impression of environmental responsibility and protection of human health.

John Wargo called for a new national healthy building  policy, which would  include:

• New chemicals tested to understand their threat to human health before they are allowed to be sold.  We should adopt the precautionary principle, as in the EU. Existing chemicals should also be  tested, rather than be exempted, as they are currently under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
• The burden of proof of safety should rest with chemical and building product manufacturers.  The testing itself should be conducted by an independent, government-supervised institute, but paid for by the manufacturers.
• A clear environmental safety standard should also be adopted to prevent further development and sale of persistent and bio-accumulating compounds.
• The chemical contents of building materials and their country of origin should be identified.
• EPA should maintain a national registry of the chemical content of building products, furnishings, and cleaning products.
• The government should categorize building products to identify those that contain hazardous compounds; those that have been tested and found to be safe; and those that have been insufficiently tested making a determination of hazard or safety impossible. This database should be freely available on the Internet.
• Distinctive “high performance” environmental health standards should be adopted to guide the construction and renovation of schools and surrounding lands.
• The federal government should create incentives for companies to research and create new chemicals that meet the health, safety, and environmental standards described above. Funding for “green chemistry” initiatives should be significantly increased and focused on benign substitutes for the most widely used and well-recognized toxic substances.
• The federal government should take responsibility for codifying these requirements to protect human health in buildings and communities.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) developed LEED parameters through a “consensus based” process led by LEED committees, and introduced the LEED rating system in 2000.  The USGBC does extraordinary and essential work – and as Howard Williams suggests in a comment on Environment 360, “wanting to add healthy building products onto that effective and successful machine is natural; we always ask more of the high achievers”.  He goes on to suggest that “a clear and supportive endorsement from the USGBC of the need to protect people from the effect of hazardous chemicals in building materials would set in motion the free market forces for accelerating change. Although this is implicitly evident by the very nature of the USGBC work, some things just need to be explicit.”[2]

However, at the time of the publication of the study in 2010, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)  took exception with the conclusions that were drawn.    Brendan Owens, P.E., vice president for LEED technical development at USGBC, criticized the report for “singling out the Indoor Environmental Quality section as the only place that LEED deals with public health.” Arguing that all LEED credits are built and evaluated for multiple environmental and health benefits, Owens said, “the report’s authors would have benefited from a better understanding of the philosophy that underpins the rating system.”

There is an ongoing and emotional debate about LEED, in which it has been criticized by other environmental groups such as the Healthy Building Network, for lacking leadership in addressing chemical hazards. Indeed, the Living Building Challenge may have been introduced as a result of LEED moving too slowly in many areas.

On the one side, the argument is that LEED is an action plan for environmental work through buildings and neighborhoods. It is not a report or even a statement of a perfect world. It is a way to define what green means. LEED, according to these proponents,  is constantly updating and moving the market, pushing it and incentivizing it to be better. And they say that LEED’s explicit purpose has never been human health.  It has always been about minimizing resource use and carbon footprint.   To announce that it “fails” to account for human health is like making the exposé that ballet is not satisfying the tastes of hip hop dancers.

On the other hand, there are those who say that though LEED should be applauded for the things it does well (new energy efficiency standards, building siting standards, water conservation for example), it should also define a “green” building, and this definition should include minimizing the use of known carcinogens, suspected endocrine disruptors, and other harmful chemicals.   It should do this because it is not just the health of the building’s inhabitants that is at stake. Throughout their life from cradle to grave, chemicals of concern in building products effect people, plants and animals–the whole environment.

Bill Walsh, executive director of the Healthy Building Network, told BuildingGreen.com that in his experience, the tone of the report represents a typical response to LEED from people in the human health community.  For example, the Green Guide for Healthcare asks that we “Imagine: Cancer treatment centers built without materials linked to cancer; Pediatric clinics free of chemicals that trigger asthma.” [3] “Their first encounter with LEED is usually highly negative—they react just like this,” he said. “People just can’t believe that you get credit for using all manner of vile material in a green building. So no, they’re not really stepping back to assess the whole thing.”   Walsh added that he hoped USGBC would use the report as an opportunity to build a broader constituency for developing its materials credits.

A pivotal issue is that there needs to be regulatory standards for the toxicity of building materials, because there cannot be a truly “green” building which compromises people’s health.  A comment posted on the Environment 360 web site suggests a new twist: Perhaps  LEED could have DEMERITS as well as credits.  This is based on the commentor’s knowledge of a LEED project in which the project removed toxic soil from a site and sent it to a landfill in someone else’s backyard. He asks the question:   “Can a LEED gold project actually send toxic soil that could be stored onsite to a location in another state? That doesn’t seem like a fully credible environmental leadership to me.” [4]

---

[1] http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2010/6/3/New-Report-Criticizes-LEED-on-Public-Health-Issues

[2] http://e360.yale.edu/feature/leed_building_standards_fail_to_protect_human_health/2306/

[3] www.gghc.org

[4] http://e360.yale.edu/feature/leed_building_standards_fail_to_protect_human_health/2306/

Global Recycle Standard

It looks like the plastic bottle is here to stay, despite publicity about bisphenol A  and other chemicals that may leach into liquids inside the bottle.   Plastic bottles (the kind that had been used for some kind of consumer product) are the feedstock for what is known as “post-consumer recycled polyester”. Even though plastic recycling appears to fall far short of its promise,  recycled polyester, also called rPET, is now accepted as a “sustainable” product in the textile market, because it’s a message that can be easily understood by consumers – and polyester is much cheaper than natural fibers.   So manufacturers, in their own best interest, have promoted “recycled polyester” as the sustainable wonder fabric, which has achieved pride of place as a green textile option in interiors.

We have already posted blogs about plastics (especially recycled plastics) last year ( to read them, click here, here or here ) so you know where we stand on the use of plastics in fabrics.  All in all, plastic recycling is not what it’s touted to be. Even if recycled under the best of conditions, a plastic bottle or margarine tub will probably have only one additional life. Since it can’t be made into another food container, your Snapple bottle will become a “durable good,” such as carpet or fiberfill for a jacket. Your milk bottle will become a plastic toy or the outer casing on a cell phone. Those things, in turn, will eventually be thrown away.  Even though the mantra has been “divert from the landfill”, what do they mean?  Divert to where?

But the reality is that polyester bottles exist,  and recycling some of them  into fiber seems to be a better use for the bottles than land filling them.

Recycled post consumer polyester is made from bottles – which have been collected, sorted by hand, and then melted down and formed into chips (sometimes called flakes).

PET resin chips

These chips or flakes are then sent to the yarn spinning mills, where they’re melted down, often mixed with virgin polyester,  and  and spun into yarn, which is why you’ll often see a fabric that claims it’s made of 30% post consumer polyester and 70% virgin polyester, for example.

Polyester yarn

But today the supply chains for recycled polyester are not transparent, and if we are told that the resin chips we’re using to spin fibers are made from bottles – or from industrial scrap or old fleece jackets  - we have no way to verify that.  Once the polymers are at the melt stage, it’s impossible to tell where they came from.  So the yarn/fabric could be virgin polyester or  it could be recycled.   Many so called “recycled” polyester yarns may not really be from recycled sources at all because – you guessed it! – the  process of recycling is much more expensive than using virgin polyester.  Unfortunately not all companies are willing to pay the price to offer a real green product, but they sure do want to take advantage of the perception of green.   So when you see a label that says a fabric is made from 50% polyester and 50% recycled polyester – well, (until now) there was absolutely no way to tell if that was true.

Along with the fact that whether what you’re buying is really made from recycled yarns – or not – most people don’t pay any attention to the processing of the fibers.  Let’s just assume, for argument’s sake, that the fabric (which is identified as being made of 100% recycled polyester) is really made from recycled polyester.  But unless they tell you specifically otherwise, it is processed conventionally.

What does that mean?    It can be assumed that the chemicals used in processing – the optical brighteners, texturizers, dyes, softeners, detergents, bleaches and all others – probably contain some of the chemicals which have been found to be harmful to living things.  In fact the chemicals used, if not optimized, may very well contain the same heavy metals, AZO dyestuffs and/or finish chemicals that have been proven to cause much human suffering.

It’s widely thought that water use needed to recycle polyester is low, but who’s looking to see that this is true?  The weaving, however, uses the same amount of water (about 500 gallons to produce 25 yards of upholstery weight fabric) – so the wastewater is probably expelled without treatment, adding to our pollution burden.

And it’s widely touted that recycling polyester uses just 30 – 50% of the energy needed to make virgin polyester – but is that true in every case?

There is no guarantee that the workers who produce the fabric are being paid a fair wage – or even that they are working in safe conditions.

And finally there are issues specific to the textile industry:

• The base color of the recyled chips varies from white to creamy yellow.  This makes it difficult to get consistent dyelots, especially for pale shades, necessitating more dyestuffs.
• In order to get a consistently white base, some dyers use chlorine-based bleaches.
• Dye uptake can be inconsistent, so the dyer would need to re-dye the batch.  There are high levels of redyeing, leading to increased energy use.
• PVC is often used in PET labels and wrappers and adhesives.  If the wrappers and labels from the bottles used in the post-consumer chips had not been properly removed and washed, PVC may be introduced into the polymer.
• Some fabrics are forgiving in terms of appearance and lend themselves to variability in yarns,  such as fleece and carpets; fine gauge plain fabrics are much more difficult to achieve.

As the size of the recycled polyester market grows, we think the integrity of the sustainability claims for polyesters will become increasingly important.  There has not been the same level of traceability for polyesters as there is for organically labeled products.  According to Ecotextile News, this is due (at least in part) to lack of import legislation for recycled goods.

One solution, suggested by Ecotextile News, is to create a tracking system that follows the raw material through to the final product.  This would be very labor intensive and would require a lot of monitoring, all of which adds to the cost of production – and don’t forget, recycled polyester now is fashion’s darling because it’s so cheap, so those manufacturer’s wouldn’t be expected to increase costs.

There are also private standards which have begun to pop up, in an effort to differentiate their brands.  One fiber supplier which has gone the private standard route is Unifi.   Repreve™ is the name of Unifi’s recycled polyester – the company produces recycled polyester yarns, and (at least for the filament yarns) they have Scientific Certification Systems certify that Repreve™ yarns are made with 100% recycled content.  Unifi’s  “fiberprint” technology audits orders across the supply chain  to verify that if Repreve is in a product it’s present in the amounts claimed.  But there are still  many unanswered questions (because they’re  considered “proprietary information” by Unifi)  so the process is not transparent.

But now, Ecotextile News’s  suggestion has become a reality.   There is now a new, third party certification which is addressing these issues.  The Global Recycle Standard (GRS), originated by Control Union and now administered by Textile Exchange (formerly Organic Exchange),  is intended to establish independently verified claims as to the amount of recycled content in a yarn, with the important added dimension of prohibiting certain chemicals, requiring water treatment and upholding workers rights, holding the weaver to standards similar to those found in the Global Organic Textile Standard:

• Companies must keep full records of the use of chemicals, energy, water consumption and waste water treatment including the disposal of sludge;

• All prohibitied chemicals listed in GOTS are also prohibited in the GRS;
• All wastewater must be treated for pH, temperature, COD and BOD before disposal;
•  There is an extensive section related to worker’s rights.

The GRS provides a track and trace certification system that ensures that the claims you make about a product can be officially backed up. It consists of a three-tiered system:

• Gold standard -  products contain between 95 percent to 100 percent recycled material;
• Silver standard – products contain between 70 percent to 95 percent recycled product;
• Bronze standard -  products  have a minimum of 30 percent recycled content.

I have long been concerned about the rampant acceptance of recycled polyester as a green choice  when no mention has been made of processing chemicals, water treatment or workers rights, so we welcome this new GRS certification, which allows us to be more aware of what we’re really buying when we try to “do good”.

Global Organic Textile Standard

In the 1980’s, producers of eco-friendly textiles generally worked under the umbrella of  organic food associations.  However, they found that the food association was impractical for textile producers because  although the growing and harvesting of food and fiber crops were similar, the processing of fibers in preparation to make fabric varied widely.  The organic food associations were concerned primarily with food related issues.   In addition, organic fabrics and fashion was being shown in specialized stores rather than in organic food markets.

In 2002, at the Intercot Conference in Dusseldorf, Germany, a workshop with representatives of organic cotton producers, the textile industry, consumers, standard organizations and certifiers discussed the need for a harmonized and world-wide recognized organic textile standard.  The many different standards, they felt, was causing confusion and acting as a obstacle to international exchange and recognition of organic fabrics.  As a result of this workshop, the  “International Working Group on Global Organic Textile Standard“ (IWG) was founded, with an aim to work on the codification of various regional approaches and to develop a set of global standards.  Members of this group included Internationale Verband der Naturtextilwirtschaft e. V.“ (IVN),  the  Organic Trade Association (United States), the Soil Association (England)  and Japan Organic Cotton Association  (Japan).

In 2006, their work was published as the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) , which has since evolved into the leading set of criteria in the field of organic textile processing.  A main achievement of this group was the ability to compromise and to find even consensus for points that were considered to be ‘non-negotiable’.   Not all standard organizations that participated the process ended up with signing the agreement of the Working Group.

From the GOTS website:  “Since its introduction in 2006 by the International Working Group on Global Organic Textile Standard, the GOTS has gained universal recognition, led to abolishment of numerous previous similar standards of limited application and has become – with more than 2750 certified textile processing, manufacturing and trading operators in more than 50 countries and an abundance of certified products – the leading standard for the processing of textile goods using organic fibers, including environmentally oriented technical as well as social criteria.”  This is a major accomplishment, especially given the global nature of the textile supply chain.

Beside the technical requirements a certifier has to meet to become approved by the IWG for GOTS certification, it is also a prerequisite that he discontinues use of any other certification. This measure was chosen to support the goal of a harmonized Global Standard and related certification system that allows certified suppliers to export their organic textiles with one certificate recognized in all relevant sales markets in order to strengthen the awareness and market for organic textiles.

The following standards have become completely harmonized with GOTS:

• North American Fiber Standard – Organic Trade Association (USA)
• Guidelines ‘Naturtextil IVN Zertifiziert’ – International Association Natural Textile Industry (Germany)
• Standards for Processing and Manufacture of Organic Textiles – Soil Association (England)
• EKO Sustainable Textile Standard – Control Union Certifications (formerly SKAL)
• Standards for Organic Textiles – Ecocert (France)
• Organic Textile Standard – ICEA (Italy)
• Standards for Organic Textiles – ETKO (Turkey)
• Organic Fiber Standards – Oregon Tilth (USA)
• Standards for Processing of Organic Textile Products – OIA (Argentina)

One member of the IWG offers beside GOTS as their basic standard one further standard for certification that complies with GOTS but contains some additional requirements:

• Guidelines ‘Naturtextil IVN Zertifiziert BEST’ – International Association Natural Textile Industry (Germany)

GOTS aims to define a universal standard for organic fabrics—from harvesting the raw materials, through environmentally and socially responsible manufacturing, to labeling—in order to provide credible assurance to consumers. Standards apply to fiber products, yarns, fabrics and clothes and cover the production, processing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, exportation, importation and distribution of all natural fiber products.   GOTS provides a continuous quality control and certification system from field to shelf.  A GOTS certified fabric is therefore much more than just a textile which is made from organic fibers.

Why is this a big deal?  As we’ve said before, it’s like taking organic apples, and cooking them with Red Dye #2, preservatives, emulsifiers, and stabilizers -  you can’t call the finished product organic applesauce.  Same is true with fabrics, which contain as much as 27% (by weight) synthetic chemicals.

And in today’s world, with the complex supply chain that multinational companies like Wal-Mart, Nordstrom and Levi’s use, this is a very big deal.   As companies attempt to get a handle on their suppliers and maintain quality control, the list of universally understood environmental criteria in GOTS  is coming in handy. While consumers probably won’t see a GOTS tag on conventional cotton jeans, some companies are asking suppliers to use only GOTS-certified dyes and chemicals on conventional cotton clothing.  In fact, the companies mentioned above, along with Banana Republic, H&M and Target are just some of the companies that plan to use GOTS certification for their organic products.

The GOTS standard includes:

• Harvesting criteria which requires the use of from 70% to 95% organic fiber.
• • As the GOTS website explains, “As it is to date technically nearly impossible to produce any textiles in an industrial way without the use of chemical inputs, the approach is to define criteria for low impact and low residual natural and synthetic chemical inputs.   So in addition to requiring that   all inputs have to meet basic requirements on toxicity and biodegradability GOTS also  prohibits entire classes of chemicals, rather than calling out specific prohibited chemicals.  What that means is that instead of prohibiting, for example lead and cadmium (and therefore allowing other heavy metals by default), GOTS prohibits ALL heavy metals.  Here’s the Version 3.0 list:

SUBSTANCE GROUP	CRITERIA
Aromatic solvents	Prohibited
Chlorophenols (such as TeCP, PCP)	Prohibited
Complexing agents and surfactants	Prohibited are: All APEOS, EDTA, DTPA, NTA, LAS, a-MES
Fluorocarbons	Prohibited (i.e., PFOS, PFOA)
Formaldehyde and short-chain aldehydes	Prohibited
GMO’s	Prohibited
Halogenated solvents	Prohibited
Heavy Metals	Prohibited
Inputs containing functional nanoparticles	Prohibited
Inputs with halogen containing compounds	Prohibited
Organotin compounds	Prohibited
Plasticizers (i.e., Phthalates, Bisphenol A and all others with endocrine disrupting potential)	Prohibited
Quaternary ammonium compounds	Prohibited: DTDMAC, DSDMAC and DHTDM

• Environmental manufacturing practices, with a written environmental policy, must be in place.
• Environmentally safe processing requirements, which includes wastewater treatment internally before discharge to surface waters, must be in place.  This pertains to pH and  temperature as well as to biological and chemical residues in the water.
• Environmentally sound packaging requirements are in place; PVC in packaging is prohibited, paper must be post-consumer recycled or certified according to FSC or PEFC.
• Labor practices are interpreted in accordance with the International Labor Organization (ILO – no forced, bonded, or slave labor; workers have the right to join or form trade unions and to bargain collectively; working conditions are safe and hygienic; there must be no new recruitment of child labor (and for those companies where children are found to be working, provisions must be made to enable him to attend and remain in quality education until no longer a child);  wages paid must meet, at a minimum, national legal standards or industry benchmarks, whichever is higher; working hours are not excessive and inhumane treatment is prohibited.
• GOTS has a dual system of quality assurance consisting of on-side annual inspection (including possible unannounced inspections based on risk assessment of the operations) and residue testing.
• There are requirements surrounding exportation, importation and distribution of all natural fibers.

In June, 2011, The Global Organic Textile Standard launched an open comment period on it’s first revision draft of the new GOTS version 3.0.  Following this announcement, IFOAM collected comments from its members and related stakeholders in order to shape the position of the movement towards the Global Organic Textile Standard.

A total of 36 persons and/or organizations sent their comments to IFOAM.  Two important issues were raised:  90% of the respondents were against the use of nanotechnologies in organic textiles (5% abstention, 5% in favor),  and 86 % were in principle against the use of synthetic chemicals in textiles labeled as organic (3% abstention, 11% in favor). Based on the feedback provided, IFOAM submitted detailed comments to GOTS and proposed:

• to further restrict the use of synthetic substances, possibly switching to a positive list of allowed substances, instead of a list of forbidden ones.
• to add requirements to ban the deliberate use of nano-technologies in the textile processing.

GOTS is a positive ethical choice among both consumers and producers and is the most comprehensive in terms of addressing environmental issues.  Although it is difficult to obtain, it can lead to important strategic business benefits.

However, the GOTS certification applies to only natural fibers, so it cannot be applied to polyester or other synthetic fibers, which are by far the most popular fiber choice in the U.S. today.  In addition, it does not directly address the carbon footprint of an organization or its production practices.  (Please note: the choice of a fabric made of organically raised natural fibers has been shown to have a much lower carbon impact than any fabric made of synthetic fibers.  We touched on that in our some of our blog posts; click here and here to read them.)

Cradle to Cradle

Cradle to Cradle (often written as C2C) is the certification managed by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (C2CPII) – previously managed byMcDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC).  William McDonough and Michael Braungart, Time magazine’s anointed “Heroes of the Environment”, are both internationally renowned in their fields.  Known for idealism, vision, and consulting for high-profile corporate clients like Ford Motor Company and Nike, McDonough and Braungart have envisioned “a new industrial revolution,” calling for “remaking the way we make things,” the subtitle of their 2002 book Cradle to Cradle. In that book and elsewhere, McDonough and Braungart disparage “cradle-to-grave” products that aren’t designed to be lasting parts of the manufacturing cycle and that poison the environment through pollution and disposal. MBDC’s Cradle to Cradle™ (often written as C2C) protocol envisions every resource used to make products as a safe nutrient in an endless cycle.[1]  On paper Cradle to Cradle is a dream:   Their goal is to have  ”a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world with clean air, water, soil and power- economically,  equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.”

Credit: MBDC

It is a brilliant concept – how can anybody not love it?   Well, this may be a case of something sorta like the Emperor’s new clothes – two highly esteemed people, with overreaching, altruistic goals, seducing us all with ideas we can fall in love with.   But, as Lloyd Alter explains in a Treehugger article this year ( click here to read the article )  after looking deeper, we find out that it might not be  quite as wonderfully “green” as we  thought.  MBDC says that “Consumers can rely on the C2C certification mark to identify and specify sustainable products” when in fact, at least at the Basic and Silver levels, you cannot.  According to Environmental Building News, one realizes that, at the lower levels of certification (Basic and Silver), Cradle to Cradle Certification isn’t really a product certification at all.[2]  And that creates a problem, because designers – even relatively sophisticated “green” designers – perceive that any level of C2C certification means a truly sustainable product.

So let’s back up a bit to understand why the Basic and Silver “certification” is not, as Environmental Building News claims, a product certification at all.    To be clear, C2C has not claimed to be a third party certification, because MBDC consults with manufacturers to help them gain a thorough understanding of their products (since many manufacturers depend on components from other manufacturers).  They then help the manufacturers make changes necessary to achieve certification -  so some perceive a bias.   In 2010, perhaps to avoid this perception, MBDC transferred the C2C system to the C2CPII, a California-based nonprofit, which will allow the separation of the certification body from the consultation body.

The C2C certification program works to express the C2C design philosophy through five categories.  A product’s final score is the lowest of its five individual scores in each of these five areas:

1. Material Health  – i.e., chemicals contained in a product.  Materials chemistry is  MBDC’s greatest strength and, according to MBDC’s Jay Bolus, executive vice president for certification, “the heart and soul of the program”. To achieve any C2C certification requires that all ingredients be identified down to the 100 parts per million (ppm) or 0.01% level and assessed according to 19 human and environmental health criteria. MBDC uses these criteria to categorize chemicals as red, yellow, or green. Chemicals with incomplete environmental data are rated gray and are, according to Bolus, treated as if they were red. For a product to achieve any C2C certification other than Basic or Silver, it cannot contain any ingredients classified as red;  if it does the manufacturer must have a plan for eliminating them — unless red ingredients have no existing substitutes and the manufacturer contains those ingredients in a controlled, closed-loop technical cycle.[3]  Published C2C guidelines don’t detail what the certification requires of those strategies to eliminate the toxic elements. ”We will help them develop the strategy and develop some measurable milestones,” Bolus explained. “Let’s say it’s a textile—we might know of some dyes that don’t have hazardous characteristics.” MBDC would share that information and help the manufacturer reformulate its product.
2. Material Reutilization:  this category concerns recycled or renewable materials.
3. Renewable Energy Use  in manufacturing.
4. Water Stewardship (water use in manufacturing) – both energy and water use standards focus on manufacturing and do not address the energy and water consumption that results from use of the product.  In addition, there is no assessment of air emissions or product longevity.
5. Social Responsibility (corporate)

Based on ratings in each of these categories, a product can be certified by MBDC as C2C Basic, Silver, Gold, or Platinum.

However, according to Environmental Building News (click here to read the full article ) , there are a number of areas where the concept and the reality of certification—at least at the levels that are being achieved today—don’t match.

1. A C2C Basic or Silver certification, for example, doesn’t guarantee that a product is free of all red ingredients as mentioned above — the only “knockout” chemical at those levels is PVC, for example.  Although C2C identifies red ingredients at the Basic and Silver level, and companies are asked to develop plans to phase them out or optimize them, there is no C2C report card for consumers that details what a certified product does or does not include – because the list used is proprietary.  An example of what this means is exemplified by Owens Corning Propink fiberglass, which is currently certified C2C Silver.  One can wonder how a product  that some consider “the asbestos of the 21^st  Century” and is a possible carcinogen can be awarded Cradle to Cradle Silver. But the fact is, they don’t list the ingredients and publish the spreadsheet or the formula for figuring out the nutrient calculations.  It’s considered proprietary.
2. MBDC  certifies just the product,  without looking at how it is installed or used. For example, Hycrete  is an additive designed to waterproof concrete[4].  However, when used as intended it is not biodegradable and cannot be recycled by any established process. In practice, then, C2C’s certification of Hycrete as a biological nutrient means that “if you accidentally spill a five-gallon bucket into a local stream, it’s going to degrade and isn’t going to do any harm,” said Bolus.
3. Also a concern to some industry peers is that C2C is not a true third-party certification program. Third-party certifications are respected by consumers in part because the certifier doesn’t have a financial relationship with manufacturers that could influence the program’s standards or the certification results. The standards community is moving toward a separation between the organizations which develop the standard from the ones which do the actual certification.  In contrast to this model,  MBDC developed the C2C standard and certifies products with it, while its primary business is consulting with manufacturers.

For many of the C2C criteria, Basic, Silver and Gold certifications are based on plans and intentions. “Platinum is where the rubber meets the road and they’re actually recovering product,” said Kirsten Ritchie, director of sustainable design for Gensler and an expert on product certification. Tom Lent, policy director of the nonprofit Healthy Building Network, said, “It is pretty important to understand that C2C certification is, at least before Platinum, more about [the manufacturer’s] process with MBDC than actual final accomplishments in the product.” Explaining MBDC’s rationale for the tiered certifications, McDonough said, “People need the opportunity to improve products. We’ve got to give everybody a chance to get into the game, and then we need to test them on their promises.”  As of today, no product of any kind has achieved Platinum.

These distinctions between levels, however, may not be readily apparent to consumers and design professionals, who see the C2C logo stamped on a product as a validation that it is “green”, and who believe they’re supporting the lofty ideals exemplified by the MBDC protocol, without realizing that those ideals are reflected only at the unattained Platinum level.

The editors of Environmental Building News have called for MBDC to fix this by continuing to refer to Gold and Platinum levels as product certifications; while the Basic and Silver levels should be referred to in language which “clearly conveys that such a product is being reviewed by the Cradle to Cradle program and that the company has committed to work with MBDC to make it better. That’s important and a huge step for a manufacturer—so it deserves to be recognized—but to call it “certification” is misleading.”[5]

As Lloyd Alter, in a Treehugger post in February, 2011, says:

” There is so much to love about Cradle to Cradle. As a design philosophy, it is brilliant and a  model for everyone. I admire William McDonough as an architect and as a thinker. As a certification system there are issues, and I hope that the new, truly Third Party assessment system and the next generation protocol will address them.  But again it is a cautionary tale, that one can fall in love with an idea, and after looking deeper, find out that it is not quite as wonderful as one thought. MBDC says that “Consumers can rely on the certification mark to identify and specify sustainable products” when in fact, at least at the basic and silver levels, you cannot.”[6]

According to the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute website,  as of June, 2011, the new Version 3 of the C2C product certification protocol has been completed and was about to be released to stakeholders for review.

---

[1] Atlee, Jennifer and Roberts, Tristan, “Cradle to Cradle Certification:  A Peek Inside MBDC’s Black Box”, Environmental Building News,

[2] http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2010/3/1/Fixing-the-Perception-Problem-with-Cradle-to-Cradle-Certification/

[3] Ibid.

[4]  EBN Vol. 15, No. 12

[5] http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2010/3/1/Fixing-the-Perception-Problem-with-Cradle-to-Cradle-Certification/

[6] http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/02/understanding-labels-part-3-cradle-to-cradle.php

SMART Sustainable Standards

The SMART Sustainable Product Standards  is a group of standards, applicable to building materials, apparel, textiles and flooring. These products constitute 60% of the world’s products, according to the SMART website .  The SMART standards for these products are, again according to their website, “based on transparency, using consensus based metrics and life-cycle analysis.”  The term “consensus based metrics”  means that the standards they use have been pre-established, and are widely available, thereby “eliminating both redundancies and potential inconsistencies”.  Some of these include:

• Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Social Indicators
• Stockholm Toxic Chemicals List
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) ISO General Principles Standard
• General Product Life Cycle Diagram (Figure 1, p. 15)
• Federal Trade Commission Environmental Marketing Guides, also known as “Green Guides”
• US Green Building Council‘s  LEED Rating System
• FSC Certified Wood Practices 
• Green-e Power

SMART contends that, by using these widely accepted standards, SMART  standards become transparent, i.e.,  nothing is hidden in their requirements or in their decision making.   They further contend that  their rules  prevent industry trade association dominance, allowing the SMART standard to move substantially beyond the status quo.

The SMART Standard confers multiple achievement levels – depending on the number of points a product accrues in the rating system, it can be certified either:

• Sustainable
• Silver
• Gold
• Platinum

This all sounds lovely, but in sieving through the SMART website, I found it extremely confusing.     It also seems to me the web site is designed for large companies with deep pockets – the first question in their INFO/FAQ tab on the website answers the question:  “Why are sustainable products more profitable than conventional products?”  The answer:

1. The public prefers sustainable products and will pay somewhat more for them
2. coupled with the assertion that  sustainable products have “cheaper raw materials”  (I can certainly dispute that in the field of natural fibers – organic cotton simply costs more to produce, sometimes considerably more, than conventional cotton), “less liability” and “fewer regulatory constraints”.

Also, becoming SMART certified is very expensive:  For all levels except Platinum, it costs $7500 for certification; Platinum is $10,000.   Maybe that’s why the web site for the SMART Sustainable Textile  lists only 10 products from three companies as being SMaRT certified.  (see http://mts.sustainableproducts.com/SMaRT_Certified.html )

Finally, the fact that the SMART standards are based on widely available, public standards, such as the Stockholm Toxic Chemicals List, means that the SMART standard is not trying to push any envelopes.  For example, the Stockholm Toxic Chemicals List (actually titled the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants) originally banned or restricted twelve chemicals because they accumulate in the tissues of living things and are all but indestructible once they’re released into the natural world.  They can spread across the globe with weather patterns and migrating animals.  They have all been linked to a range of health issues, including cancer and reproductive and developmental problems.  In 2010, nine more chemicals were added to the list, making a total of 21.  But today there are 80,000 chemicals in use by industry, most of which have not ever been tested, so we really don’t even know the extent of our exposure to toxins.  So it’s terrific that  SMART incorporates the Stockholm Convention list, but aren’t those chemicals banned by the Stockholm Convention already?   Also, why stop with just the Stockholm Convention list?  Toxic pollution is a problem without national boundaries.  Chemicals are an issue for international negotiation and have been so for decades.  To date, more than 50 regional and international agreements on chemicals and waste management have been adopted by governments.

GreenGuard certification

GreenGuard was launched in 2000 by Atlanta-based for-profit Air Quality Sciences (AQS), which is now a separate not-for-profit organization. Although GreenGuard was not designed specifically for fabrics, it is often advertised that a fabric is GreenGuard certified, because GreenGuard certified products can automatically meet the requirements of LEED 2009 CI Credit 4.5 and BIFMA X7.1.

GreenGuard has developed proprietary indoor air-quality pollutant guidelines based on standards developed by the government and by industrial bodies.  Maximum allowable emission levels in air concentrations, according to their website,  are based on those required by the state of Washington‘s indoor air quality program for new construction, the U. S. EPA’s procurements specifications, the recommendations from the World Health Organization, Germany’s Blue Angel Program,  LEED for New Construction (LEED-NC) and LEED for Commercial Interiors (LEED-CI).

GreenGuard  has introduced a special certification, called GreenGuard Children and Schools,  which is intended to be applied to products which are used in schools, daycares, healthcare facilities, and places where sensitive adults may reside or work.  This certification is necessary because, as they say on their website, “children are more sensitive to environmental exposures than adults. Their bodies are still developing including their brains. They breathe faster than adults and in return receive a higher dose of indoor pollution per body weight. To account for inhalation exposure to young children, a body burden correction factor has been applied to the current GREENGUARD Indoor Air Quality Certified^® allowable levels.”

Those products that pay the testing fee and pass muster earn the right to call themselves GreenGuard certified.  The GreenGuard Product Guide has become a purchasing tool for thousands of specifiers as they depend on it to preselect environmentally preferable products.

In order to become certified, all products are tested in dynamic environmental chambers following test methods as posted on the GreenGuard Environmental Institute (GEI)  web site.   The tests are designed to measure emitting chemicals coming from a product; that means it tests only for evaporating chemicals -  chemicals which are a gas at room temperature.  Specifically, for the GreenGuard certification, emission criteria are established for total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC), formaldehyde, total aldehydes, all individual chemicals with currently published Threshold Limit Values (TLVs), respirable particles and certain odorants and irritants.  The requirements for Children and Schools is more stringent and includes limits on emissions for total phthalates,  consisting of dibutyl (DBP), diethylhexyl (DEHP), diethyl (DEP), dimethyl (DMP), butylbenzyl (BBP) and dioctyl (DOP) phthalates, because, again according to the GreenGuard website, “Results from recent research indicate that inhalation is an important route of exposure to phthalates and that these chemicals have been associated with endocrine disorders, reproductive and developmental disorders, asthma and allergies.”

GreenGuard, by measuring only emitting chemicals, is significant for what it does not measure:

• It does not measure any of the heavy metals (lead, mercury, copper, etc.), such as those used in fabric dyestuffs, because they are not emitted at standard indoor air conditions;
• It does not measure PVC,  which is a polymer and therefore not volatile (however, some PVC based product types have a special formulation which enables them to meet GreenGuard standards);
• It does not measure phthalates  except in the Children and Schools certification; phthalates are semi volatile, and don’t begin to evaporate until approximately 7 days after exposure to the air.
• It does not evaluate the manufacture of a product, nor any byproducts created during production or disposal
• It does not evaluate any social justice issues
• It does not evaluate carbon footprint issues

Nobody can debate that we need to rid the indoor environment from irritating contaminants that can have serious effects on people’s health, productivity and quality of life.  Since

Americans spend 90 percent of their time indoors, and indoor air can be as much as 100 times more polluted than outdoor air, this issue must be taken seriously by designers.  It is incumbent on them to specify products (including fabrics) that are low-emitters of formaldehyde and all the other volatile organic compounds that contribute to poor indoor air.  But it is also true that air quality is not the only contributor to poor health, productivity and quality of life of the occupants of indoor spaces – after all, our skin is the largest organ in our bodies, and it’s quite permeable.  So designers should not take this certification as assurance that a product is the best environmental choice – not only does it bypass those chemicals that do not evaporate, it does not look at the production of the fabric, any social justice issues, nor does it look at carbon footprint.  Indeed, a product containing PVC, one of the most toxic substances known – highly toxic in all its phases: manufacture, use, and disposal – can be  GreenGuard certified.

According to GreenGuard itself, as is published on their web site:  GreenGuard is a product emissions performance-based standard, and as such, the complete toxicity effects of the chemical emissions from the products tested are beyond its scope.

So what are the take aways?  Remember that GreenGuard tests for emitting chemicals only, and they do that very well.   But it should not be used as a tool to evaluate a product’s environmental impact and safety.

Certifications: Oeko Tex

I have an apology to make:  I made a statement last week that turns out to be incorrect, based on experience from years ago.  I said

“it’s not unusual to find a GOTS certification logo on a product – because it’s hard to get, and those who have it certainly want to display the logo.  But the certification may apply only to the organic fibers – the logo itself is not specific as to what is being certified.”

Laurie Lemmlie-Leung, of Sapphire International, Ltd, which is a GOTS certified terry mill, pointed out that in their experience,  “If we do not have an approved “GOTS Product Specification Plan” and transaction certificates showing that all the inputs are also GOTS certified, then we cannot use the GOTS label on the product.”  And that is indeed the case:  a GOTS logo on any product means that all processing up to the final product is GOTS certified.  So if GOTS certified cotton yarn is being sold, it can display the logo.  However, if that yarn is used to weave a fabric in a non-certified facility, the final fabric cannot display the logo.

So when you see a GOTS logo on a product, you can rest assured that the entire supply chain has been certified.

Now, back to discussion of certifications:  Before giving a summary of the main points of each of the certifications which deal with fiber processing (i.e., weaving), it’s important to remember that most of these certification programs are in business – so it costs money to achieve the certification – sometimes it costs a LOT of money.  In addition there is the burden of documentation, which increases administrative costs for the manufacturer.

Cradle to Cradle and GreenGuard can cost quite a bit, so when you look on the web sites to find which products have these certifications,  you see mostly large, well established companies which can afford to absorb the certification costs.  On the GreenGuard website, for example, it lists 1943 individual products, but all 1943 products are manufactured by only 20 large, well-known companies.  Sometimes smaller manufacturers decide not to pay the costs of certification, even though they may be doing everything “by the book”, because they’re operating on a shoestring.  Unfortunately, the many unethical claims make third party certification a requirement.

In addition to certifications, there are many new “green guides” on the internet which purport to list green products.  Some are valiantly trying to make order out of chaos, while others are simply adding to the confusion.  Of these, a basic listing may (or may not) be free, but any additional bells and whistles costs money.  So green products may be specially featured or identified (sometimes as “best”) because the manufacturer has paid for the spotlight.  The same is true of television shows which purport to cover new green products.  We have been approached several times by television programs featuring a well-known personality who would wax eloquently about our fabrics – if only we were to pay the right price.

What does this all mean?  Do your own homework!  Most of these “experts” have no more knowledge than you do.  And again, certifications provide a reliable yardstick to determine quality standards.

The third party certifications which cover textile processing and/or final products which you’ll see most often include:

• Oeko Tex
• GreenGuard
• Cradle 2 Cradle by MBDC
• Global Organic Textile Standard
• Global Recycle Standard
• SMART Sustainable Textile Standard

These are the certifications you’re most likely to run into, and they are very different.  So different, in fact, that we’ll take a few weeks to explore what each one tells us.

This week, we’ll start with one of the oldest certifications:  Oeko Tex.

Oeko Tex is an independent, third party certifier that offers two certifications for textiles:

1. Oeko-Tex 100 (for products)
2. Oeko-Tex 1000 (for production sites/factories).

Products satisfying the criteria for Oeko-Tex 100 which are produced in an Oeko-Tex 1000 certified facility may use the Oeko-Tex 100Plus mark, which is simply a combination of the two.

Oeko Tex was founded in 1992, by the Austrian Textile Research Intitute (OTI) and the German Research Institute Hohenstein,  to provide an objective and reliable product label for consumers.  Its aim is to ensure that products posed no risk to health.

Oeko Tex Standard 100

The Oeko-Tex Standard 100 standard is concerned primarily with health and safety of textile products – it tests only the end product.  The processing is not addressed – for example, wastewater treatment is not included.   It is NOT an organic certification and products bearing this mark are not necessarily made from organically grown fibers. (Note:  When you see the logo, make sure that the test number is quoted (No. 11-20489 in the image above)  and the test institute is named (Shirley is the institute which tested the product).)

Textiles considered for this standard are classified into four categories, and each category has different test values for chemicals allowed in the product:

• Product Class I: Products for Babies – all textile products and materials used to manufacture such textile products for children up to the age of 36 months (leather clothing is excepted)
• Product Class II: Products with Direct Contact to Skin – worn articles of which a large surface touches the skin (i.e. underwear, shirts, pants)
• Product Class III: Products without Direct Contact to Skin – articles of which only a small part of their surface touches the skin (i.e. linings, stuffings)
• Product Class IV: Decoration Material – this may also be thought of as housewares, as this category includes table cloths, wall coverings, furnishing fabrics, curtains, upholstery fabrics, floor coverings, and mattresses.

Textile products bearing the Oeko-Tex 100 certification mark:

• Do not contain allergenic dye-stuffs and dye stuffs that form carcinogenic arylamines.
• Have been tested for pesticides and chlorinated phenoles.
• Have been tested for the release of heavy metals under artificial perspiration conditions.
• Formaldehyde is banned; other aldehyde limits are significantly lower than the required legal limits.
• Have a skin friendly pH.
• Are free from chloro-organic carriers.
• Are free from biologically active finishes.

The certification process includes thorough testing for a lengthy list of chemicals, including lead, antimony, arsenic, phthalates, pesticides, and chlorinated phenols. The official table of limits for tested chemicals may be found on the Oeko-Tex website.  Specifically banned are:

• AZO dyes
• Carcinogenic and allergy-inducing dyes
• Pesticides
• Chlorinated phenols
• Chloro-organic benzenes and toluenes
• Extractable heavy metals
• Phthalates in baby articles
• Organotin compounds(TBT and DBT)
• Emissions of volatile components

Certification may be given to a finished product (such as a shirt), or to individual components (such as yarn, or fabric).

Oeko-Tex Standard 1000

The Oeko-Tex 1000 is a certification for environmentally-friendly textile production.
The goal of the Oeko-Tex 1000 Standard is to be “an evaluation of the environmental performance of textile production sites and products and to document independently that certain environmental measures are undertaken and a certain level achieved.”

The evaluation process includes considerations for:

• environmental impact: energy consumption, whether materials used are renewable or non-renewable, and the overall impact of the space utilized
• global impact: use of fossil fuels, use of ozone-depleting chemicals regional impact: VOC’s, water contamination, acidification of soil and water from fossil fuel use, emissions (often from chlorine bleaching)
• local effects: emissions, workplace contamination, noise, use of dangerous chemical products

The mark is not applied directly to products, but may be used by the production site (for example, on its letterhead and official documents). The “local effects” consideration does NOT include an evaluation of labor practices and is not meant to be an indicator of whether a production site is following fair labor practices.

Oeko-Tex 100Plus

This label may be used on products that have met the Oeko-Tex 100 Standard and are also produced in a facility that meets the Oeko-Tex 1000 Standard.

So, these are the important points to keep in mind when you see the Oeko Tex logo:

1. Oeko Tex 100 is product specific – they don’t look at processing (i.e., water treatment, workers rights, emissions, sludge), it only means that the finished product (fabric, yarn, clothing, etc.) has limit values for chemicals which are below the threshold limits on the Oeko Tex list, with many specifically prohibited.
2. Oeko Tex 1000 is site specific, and documents that certain environmental standards are met, but these do not include workers rights issues.
3. Oeko Tex 100+ means that the site meets environmental standards and the product itself is safe to use.

Certifications – part 1

If you agree with me that a third party certification is a way to give us the most unbiased, substantive  information about the environmental performance of a fabric, let’s look at third party certifications which are on the market and which test finished textiles.  It’s important to know what each certification is telling us, both to keep our frustration levels manageable and to be able to extract useful, trustworthy information.  But before we get to individual certifications, there are several issues that are unique to fabrics, which we should mention first.

The first issue has to do with the fact that people often think about what the fabric is made of and totally forget the long and complex process that has to happen to turn the raw material into a soft, smooth finished fabric  -  I mean, really, do you actually think that the cotton boll which you see in the picture is transformed into your blouse without some kind of serious work?  What about oil?  Think of crude oil and your new sheets – what do you think has to have happened to that crude to make it acceptable for your bedroom?

The market is absolutely rife with claims about organic cotton – and believe me, I have absolutely nothing against organic cotton.  But the focus (by marketers and consumers alike) is that if it’s made of organic cotton, then the product is sustainable.  That’s far from the truth.  We like to use the analogy of  “organic applesauce” – that is, if you take organic apples, then cook them with preservatives, emulsifiers, Red Dye #2, stabilizers and any number of other additives – do you end up with organic applesauce?  Just like bread – which is made from wheat which is grown (maybe organically), harvested, ground into flour, mixed with milk, yeast, salt and maybe other things, then baked – fabric undergoes the same type of transformation.

So the certifications which are often found on fabrics may only pertain to the FIBER, and not to the processing.  What they mean is the fabric started out with organic fibers – but the processing, like the organic applesauce mentioned above, results in fabric that contains a high proportion, by weight, of synthetic chemicals (such as lead or mercury, formaldehyde, chlorine, or phthalates).

So if only the fiber is certified,  you can assume that the chemicals used in processing may contain some of the highly toxic chemicals usually found in solvents, dyestuffs, and finishes.  And you can assume that the excess chemicals were released in the effluent and are now circulating in our groundwater.  Nor is any mention made of fair wages and safe working conditions.   In other words, a fabric made with “organic cotton”, if processed conventionally, is full of chemicals which may be prohibited in a truly organic fabric and which are known to cause all kinds of bad things to human bodies (especially really little bodies), and those harmful chemicals, released in untreated effluent, are now contributing to our own chemical body burden.

Besides the proliferation of certifications, further muddying of the waters happens because the textile supply chain is one of the most complex in all of industry – and some of the certification agencies can certify each step in the process.  In other words, each end product can be certified.  So if we deconstruct a piece of fabric, it’s possible (indeed necessary to certify the final product) to  have certification at each stage:   (1) growing and harvesting of organic fibers  (2) ginning or other preparation of the fibers to make them suitable for use in spinning;  (3)  spinning of the fibers into yarns; (4) weaving of the yarns into fabric   (5) dyeing and/or finishing and (6) final product (i.e., blouse, tablecloth, etc.).  So it’s not unusual to find a GOTS certification logo on a product – because it’s hard to get, and those who have it certainly want to display the logo.  But the certification may apply only to the organic fibers – the logo itself is not specific as to what is being certified.

It’s quite common to find  “organic cotton” fabrics  in the market – in other words, fabrics made of organic fibers.  But unless you do some probing, it’s common to find that the “organic” part pertains only to the fiber, while the fabric was made conventionally.

Certification agencies (the companies that verify the fibers/fabric meets the standards set for in the certification)  for fibers and textiles  include:

• USDA organic

  United States Department of Agriculture, National Organic Program (NOP):  this logo certifies that the fiber is organic -  only the fiber.  According to a new Department of Agriculture memorandum dated May 20, 2011, textiles and textile products labeled as “organic” must be third-party certified, and all fibers identified as “organic” contained in the textile product must be certified organic to the NOP regulations. The policy memo confirms that textile products that are produced in accordance with the the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) may be sold as ‘organic’ in the U.S. though they may not refer to NOP certification or carry the USDA organic seal.

• Soil Association Certification Limited (SA Certification) is the UK’s largest organic certification body. It’s also the only certification body linked to a committed charity, promoting organic food and farming.  As a member of the Global Standard GmbH, the managing body of the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), the Soil Association now uses the GOTS certification for all new textile products.

• OneCert:  OneCert provides organic certification worldwide. Certification and inspection programs include the US National Organic Program (NOP), European Organic Regulations (EU 2092/91), Quebec Organic Standards (CAQ), Japan Agricultural Standards (JAS), IFOAM, and Bio Suisse. Services include organic certification, organic inspection, export certificates, transaction certificates, on-line record keeping, answers to certification questions, and presentations of organic topics.
• Peterson Control Union:  Control Union is a global one-stop-shop for a range of services in all aspects of the logistics chain of many commodities, including certification programs.   It certifies to the standards of The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), and the Organic Exchange.
• The Institute for Marketcology (IMO): IMO is one of the first and most renowned international agencies for inspection, certification and quality assurance of eco-friendly products. IMO offers certification for organic production and handling according to the European Regulation (EU) Nr. 2092/91, GOTS, Organic Exchange and for The International Association of Natural Textile Industry, known as IVN.  IVN is an alliance of more than 70 businesses involved at some level in the textile production chain, with the goal of countering abuses by having a clearly defined “ecologically oriented and socially accountable business practice.”    If a company meets their standards they are awarded a quality seal, which is called Naturtextil IVN certified or certified Best.  According to the IVN, GOTS is the minimum standard that distinguishes ecotextiles.  Read more here.

The third party certifications which we think every conscious consumer of fabric should be aware includes:  Oeko-Tex, GOTS, C2C, GreenGuard, Global  Recycle Standard and SMART.  Each one has its own set of standards and we’ll take a look at them next week.

How do I know a fabric is “green”?

copyright Scott Adams, Inc. / Dist. by USF, Inc.

It’s been almost two years since we talked about certifications (click here to read our earlier post), so I think it’s time for a refresher, because, as one pundit said, “our product is green” is joining “the check’s in the mail”  as one of the most frequent fibs in our modern times.  According to TerraChoice, there were 73% more  “green” products on the market in 2010 than in 2009 – and over 95% of those claims are false or misleading.[1]  Greenwashing – the deceptive use of green PR or green marketing in order to promote a misleading perception that a company’s policies or products (such as goods or services) are environmentally friendly – is the order of the day.  One corporation after another has jumped on the “green-your-corporation-for-a-better-public-image” bandwagon,  doing things such as starting partnerships with legitimate green groups, which is good, while continuing business as usual, which is bad.   Manipulating public perception is the name of the game.   This is so ubiquitous that Steven Colbert, for one, can’t resist:  he says that they now have a “Green Colbert Report”  –  they’re reducing their emissions by jumping on the bandwagon.

So why is this necessarily a bad thing?  Doesn’t really hurt anybody does it?

Actually, it does hurt us all.  As advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather puts it in a new report, greenwash is actually “an extremely serious matter…it is insidious, eroding consumer trust, contaminating the credibility of all sustainability-related marketing and hence inhibiting progress toward a sustainable economy.” In other words, it’s very hard for customers to know what choices make a difference when some marketers are muddying the waters for all. When buyers throw up their hands in confusion, we all lose.[2]  And it results in consumer and regulator complacency – if one corporation in a particular industry gets away with greenwashing, then other corporations will follow suit, leading to an industry-wide illusion of sustainability, rather than sustainability itself.

This year, Cone Inc.’s Trend Tracker found that nearly three-quarters of consumers (71%) will stop buying a product if they feel misled by environmental claims – and more than a third will go so far as to boycott a company’s products.[3]

With textiles specifically, we see environmental claims that are just as outrageous as the new “Natural Energy Snack on the Go” from Del Monte – individually wrapped bananas. [4]

Packaged bananas from Del Monte

The problem is that the issues involved in evaluating a claim are often complex, and they vary greatly by product.   In addition, there is a raging debate about what constitutes green practices – for example, recycled polyester is considered a “green” choice in textiles,  yet what yardstick is being used to make that claim?  We have done numerous blog posts on why any kind of synthetic has a much greater environmental impact  than any naturally raised fiber (click here to read the first of these posts).  If we compare synthetics to organically raised fibers, do we also include the benefits of supporting organic agriculture, or is that a benefit that gets lost in the equation?

Even though the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has established guidelines for environmental claims, these guidelines are not law, and are only enforceable if a complaint is lodged to the FTC and there is enough evidence to get a court order forcing the company to remove the claim.  But what if people simply don’t have enough knowledge to lodge a complaint?

I’ve spent years reading about the issues involved in textile production (one of the most complex supply systems in all manufacturing) but don’t feel capable of evaluating other products.   That’s where transparency on the part of manufacturers comes in:  Consumers have to understand that there are no green products – every product uses resources and creates waste.  And there are tradeoffs.  But beyond that understanding, third party certifications give us all certain measurable standards by which we can compare products, and are a useful tool.

But even certifications need some kind of knowledge base on the part of the consumer in order to be valuable.  (What’s being measured?  Who’s doing the measuring? Which environmental claims are relevant, and what are subterfuge?)

Certifications  (not to be confused with labels and standards) fall into three categories:  first, second and third party certifications:

1. In first party certifications, a person or an organization says it meets certain claims; there is not usually an independent test to verify those claims.  These are usually a fairly simple claim, such as that the product will last for at least a year.  An example of this type of certification is that of  Kravet’s “Kravet Green” collection,  because Kravet itself is telling us that their fabrics are green.   There is no mention of any other certification bodies corroborating their statements.
2.  In second party certification, an association or group provides the assurance that a product meets certain criteria.  This type of certification offers little assurance against conflicts of interest.   Under new FTC guidelines, companies that are members of the trade organization or group that certifies their product must disclose that relationship to the consumer.  An example of second party certification can be considered that of the American Textile Manufacturers Institute’s Encouraging Environmental Excellence (E3) program, which has developed a set of standards and which awards use of their logo if companies comply with these standards.
3. Third party certifications are issued by independent testing companies based on impartial evaluation of a claim by expert unbiased sources with reference to a publicly available set of standards.  Third party certification is considered the highest level of assurance you can achieve.  A third party certification is represented by the Global Organic Textile Standard,  which has a public set of standards and which is administered by independent testing labs around the world.  In other words, you can’t pay these labs to misrepresent their findings, since their business is testing and certification only (such as Peterson Control Union or Oeko Tex).

Like green claims, there is also an abundance of seals and labels that assure environmental worthiness, experts say.

“About once a week, I have a client that will bring up a new certification I’ve never even heard of and I’m in this industry,” said Kevin Wilhelm, chief executive officer of Sustainable Business Consulting, a Washington-based company that helps businesses plan green marketing strategies. “It’s kind of a Wild West, anybody can claim themselves to be green.”

Mr. Wilhelm said the plethora of labels made it difficult for businesses and consumers to know which labels they should pay attention to. “There’s no way for the average consumer or even for a C.E.O. to know which ones to go for or what they should get,” he said. [5]

Okay, which certifications apply to textiles and what do they tell us?  Tune in next week.

---

[1] “The Sins of Greenwashing”, Terra Choice, October 26, 2010, http://blog.terrachoice.com/2010/11/08/the-2010-sins-of-greenwashing-study-is-here/

[2] Winston, Andrew, “Avoiding Greenwash and Its Dangers”, Harvard Business Review, April 15, 2010. http://blogs.hbr.org/winston/2010/04/avoiding-greenwash-and-its-dan.html

[3] http://www.coneinc.com/news/request.php?id=3624

[4] According to James Harvey, Del Monte’s UK managing director, “Del Monte’s new CRT packaging is designed to provide significant carbon footprint savings by reducing the frequency of deliveries and the amount of waste going to landfill. The packaging is also recyclable.”

[5] Vega, Tanzina, “Agency Seeks to Tighten Rules for ‘Green’ Labeling”, New York Times, October 6, 2010.