Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) has come up with GOTS Version 6.0. While key requirements have been maintained, some others have been made stricter.
References to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines and assessment of living wage gap have been included. Certified entities will now have to calculate the gap of actually paid wages to ‘Living Wages’. Notably, 1 year is the transition period for all GOTS users to completely comply with the latest version.
It is pertinent to mention here that India and Bangladesh are on the top in terms of total numbers of GOTS-certified facilities in 2019, with the numbers being 2,411 and 1,194, respectively.
The revision undertaken every 3 years serves to set stricter ecological and social criteria from field to fashion, while maintaining relevance of the standard so as to ensure it retains its leading position.
GOTS is the stringent voluntary global standard for the entire post-harvest processing of apparel and home textiles made with certified organic fibres (such as organic cotton and organic wool), and includes both environmental and social criteria.
As per GOTS, the new version withdraws the relaxation for the additional regenerated and virgin synthetic fibre content for products like socks, leggings and sportswear.
