GOTS — Global Organic Textile Standard
Global Organic Textile Standard 8.0
The percentage is measured on fibre content alone, so zips, buckles and soles sit outside the number, and "GOTS certified" without a grade and a figure is an incomplete answer. Its site-level water and energy data is not a product footprint.
What it covers
Certified organic fibre content plus environmental and social criteria across processing, manufacturing, packaging and labelling. Two label grades: ‘organic’ (95%+) and ‘made with organic’ (70%+). GOTS 8.0 was released in March 2026 and is effective for all certified entities from 1 March 2027; the transition period runs for one year from release and early adoption is permitted and encouraged. All audits and assessments conducted on or after 1 March 2027 must follow version 8.0, which means a certificate you are shown during the transition year may still have been audited against GOTS 7.0 — always ask which version the certificate was audited to. Version 8.0 strengthens air emissions and waste management requirements, updates product safety criteria, tightens PFAS limits and residue testing, adds mandatory OECD-aligned due diligence, and introduces new provisions on circularity and microfibre management.
What it does not cover
Does not certify the farm. Organic fibre must already be certified to a standard in the IFOAM Family of Standards (EU 2018/848, USDA NOP, NPOP, GB/T19630) before it enters the GOTS chain, so GOTS tells you nothing about farming yield and audits no fields itself — it only sets entry conditions on the fibre (no mulesing, no gross ILO core-labour violations, no land grabbing) and requires the certified entity to ensure that fibre respects GOTS social criteria. Does not give you a product water footprint or carbon footprint: no LCA is run and no per-product figure appears on the certificate. Do not read that as “GOTS ignores water and carbon”, because it is the most common thing buyers get wrong here — v7.0 (in force until 1 March 2027) already requires energy and water consumption data per kg of textile output, reduction targets, and a documented GHG Emission Management programme; v8.0 tightens this to quantified litres/kg water-reduction targets (§4.3.9) and Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions calculated at least annually under the GHG Protocol or ISO 14064, with Scope 3 scoping (§4.3.11). These are site-level management duties, not a product footprint, so never accept a GOTS certificate as a substitute for a product LCA. Does not guarantee physical performance. On a blend the percentage is measured on fibre content only, with accessories excluded from the calculation — zips, buckles, buttons and footwear soles sit outside the number entirely, so ask what they are. The remainder is not unregulated: it is capped at 5% (“organic”) or 30% (“made with x% organic”), must come from the GOTS list of permitted additional fibres — conventional cotton, virgin polyester and acrylic are banned outright, and virgin synthetics are held to 10% — and is subject to the same chemical residue limits, while the chemical, wastewater and social criteria apply to every certified processing stage of the whole article, not just the organic fraction. Always ask which grade and what percentage, because “GOTS certified” alone does not tell you.
Scope and exclusions are recorded from the issuing body’s own published documentation. A certificate covers what its scope statement says and nothing beyond it.