GOTS GRTS textile certification: the new sibling that covers the fabric most school children actually live in
Global Standards, the non-profit behind GOTS, launched a new certification this month called the Global Responsible Textile Standard, or GRTS. I read about it cold in my inbox, and the more I dug into it, the more I think it raises a genuinely interesting question for our sector specifically. This is, at its core, a new GOTS GRTS textile certification, and children's wear has more riding on it than you would expect.
GOTS has always been an organic cotton story at heart. GRTS is not. It extends certification to three fibre groups GOTS never covered: certified recycled fibres, both pre and post consumer, fibres grown under regenerative agriculture practices, and sustainable natural fibres that fall outside organic eligibility. Global Standards managing director Claudia Kersten called it a strategic step that lets the organisation support the industry's business case for sustainability beyond organic alone. The reasoning behind the launch is a traceability gap in non organic fibres, a genuine surge in market demand for recycled and regenerative content, and buyers and regulators wanting proper proof behind sustainability claims rather than the current patchwork of voluntary schemes.
The mechanics are close to GOTS, and in some ways stricter. Products need a minimum of 90% certified fibre content, verified through independent third party accredited certification bodies at every stage of processing, with mandatory chain-of-custody and identity preservation so a fibre's certified status cannot get lost or swapped out along the supply chain. Highly hazardous chemicals and GMOs are prohibited outright, transaction certificates and volume reconciliation are required, and social norms in fibre production are written into the standard alongside the environmental criteria, not treated as an afterthought. A brand already certified to GOTS can complete a single combined audit rather than two separate processes. The product scope is broad: clothing, yarns, fabrics, home textiles, accessories, and, worth noting for our sector specifically, textile toys. Global Standards launched GRTS in Stuttgart on 14th September with 27 independent certification bodies already accredited and ready to certify against it, so this is not a standard launching on paper with nobody able to act on it, it is operational from day one. Soil Association Certification, the UK's GOTS accredited certifier, has already confirmed it is adding GRTS to its own services, with chief executive Dominic Robinson describing it as the first globally harmonised processing standard for sustainable textiles that sit outside organic certification.
Here is where it gets interesting for us. At a Sustainable Fashion Week Roundtable I attended last year, I heard it said that children's wear over indexes on organic and GOTS cotton specifically, driven by parents' instinct that natural fibres are safer against a baby's skin. That instinct is real and well documented, even if nobody has ever published a clean figure for exactly how far ahead of other categories our sector actually is. What I do not know, and cannot currently find a number for either way, is whether that same leadership carries over into the new ground GRTS has just opened up.
I want to correct my own framing here, because on reflection it was not quite right. Babywear genuinely does lean into cotton, driven by that skin safety instinct. Children's clothing is a different picture, more polarised between cotton at one end and polyester at the other, and polyester is not a marginal presence in a child's wardrobe, it is a huge chunk of it. School uniform sits on polyester for real, practical reasons, hard wearing, easy care, affordable, exactly what I wrote about a few weeks ago when the rules changed on how many branded uniform items a school can require, down to three for most schools, four if one of them is a tie. Swimwear, dress-up, outerwear, and the acrylic Christmas jumper that seems to live in every child's drawer by December, all sit on the same side of that line. And a great deal of what children, boys especially, actually wear outside school hours is sportswear, which means polyester is quietly the fabric a lot of children live in most days, whatever a parent pictures when they think about their child's wardrobe. Regenerative agriculture fibres are a different story again, so far championed mostly in premium wool and denim, with no obvious children's wear home yet. So recycled synthetics are not a stretch for our category at all, they are already sitting in the school bag, the swimming kit and the sports bag. What has been missing, until now, is a credible certification to point to for any of it.
This is good news, not a compliance headache. GRTS is voluntary, exactly like GOTS, and it closes a real gap. A recycled polyester school jumper or swim short previously had no credible route to prove itself the way an organic cotton babygrow could. Now it does, and given how much of what children actually wear each week already sits on exactly the fibres GRTS covers, that gap mattered more than a first glance at organic cotton's dominance might suggest. If your business already uses anything other than organic cotton and has been quietly making the case for its sourcing without a certification to point to, this is the news that changes that.
So here is what this means for you. If certification, not fibre choice, is genuinely the trust signal parents respond to, as I have believed for a while, then GRTS is an opportunity to extend that same trust to every material you use, not just the organic cotton pieces in your range, and particularly to the polyester categories, uniform, sportswear, swimwear, that make up more of a child's actual wardrobe than the organic cotton conversation usually credits. And if you are watching which categories move fastest to adopt it, children's wear is exactly the sector worth keeping an eye on, because it already has the fibre mix to make GRTS matter, not just the instinct.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What is GRTS, and how is it different from GOTS?
GRTS, the Global Responsible Textile Standard, is a new voluntary certification launched by Global Standards, the body behind GOTS, on 14 September 2026. Where GOTS covers organic fibres, GRTS covers fibres organic certification never touched: certified recycled fibres, regenerative agriculture fibres, and sustainable non-organic natural fibres.
Does GRTS apply to children's products?
Yes. GRTS's product scope explicitly includes textile toys alongside clothing, yarns, fabrics, home textiles and accessories, so it applies directly to children's and baby products, not just adult apparel.
Does recycled polyester certification actually matter for children's wear?
Yes, more than it might first appear. Babywear leans cotton, but children's clothing generally is polarised between cotton and polyester, and polyester already covers real, large categories: school uniform, sportswear worn as everyday clothing, swimwear, dress-up and costume pieces, and acrylic Christmas jumpers. Until GRTS launched, none of that had a credible certification route the way an organic cotton garment did.
If you want help working out which certification actually fits the fibres you use, rather than defaulting to the one everyone has heard of, that is exactly the kind of conversation we have at The Nest. Come and talk to us.
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