The growing initiatives for sustainability in the textile industry of India and Bangladesh have yet again paid rich dividends!
GOTS registered highest growth rate ever in 2019 as the number of GOTS-certified facilities, has risen from 5,760 to 7,765 across 70 countries.
That’s a global growth of 35 per cent!
Notably, Bangladesh (73 per cent) is among the countries with largest growth in GOTS-certification in percentage in last year.
Globally, this huge leap forward was seen in both production and consumption. In terms of total number of certified facilities, the highest increase is reported from Bangladesh (+505), followed by India (+438).
India and Bangladesh were on the top in terms of total number of GOTS-certified facilities in 2019, with the numbers being 2411 and 1194, respectively.
Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) certification helps to ensure compliance with each of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It is the stringent voluntary global standard for the entire post-harvest processing (which includes spinning, knitting, weaving, dyeing and manufacturing) of apparel and home textiles made with certified organic fibre (such as organic cotton and organic wool), and includes both environmental and social criteria.
Globally, more than 3 million workers working in GOTS-certified facilities were reported in
2019 by the 17 accredited independent Certification Bodies. 2019 was also a GOTS revision year resulting in the new GOTS Version 6.0, due to be released in spring 2020.
Claudia Kersten, MD, GOTS, said “The enormous growth shows that GOTS successfully serves as sustainable solution from certified organic fibre to finished product.”
When it comes to having maximum number of GOTS-certified units, India has been sitting comfortably at the top since 2008. And 2020 is no excpetion, with the country witnessing a rise of 438 GOTS-certified facilities.
Sumit Gupta, GOTS Representative in India & Bangladesh, shared “With the whole supply chain from farm to retail, along with suppliers of GOTS-Approved Chemical Inputs, India has a unique position in the organic textiles industry. More than 10 Indian brands are offering GOTS-labelled goods in Indian retail, while few others are using GOTS as a risk management tool and may start labelling in the future.”
