IOAS are pleased to confirm the appointment of  Katharina Schaus to the IOAS Accreditation Committee. Katharina is a sustainable textile expert with years of experience building certification systems, conducting audits, making certification decisions, and offering training and consultancy services to textile producers, traders, and retailers and certification bodies. Involved in

Textile Exchange’s Preferred Fiber and Materials Matrix (PFMM) has been published and assesses the performance of different sustainability standards within material categories, across 80 qualitive and quantitative indicators. Standards systems are assessed across core impact areas, including Climate, Water, Chemicals, Land, Resource Use and Waste, Biodiversity, Human Rights, Animal Welfare,

Soil Association Certification Ltd. (known as SACL) of United Kingdom has voluntary withdrawn from its accreditation under the Textile Exchange accreditation program as of September 16th 2023. Any operations, certification bodies and authorities that relied on this accreditation are asked to take note. Soil Association Certification Ltd.’s accreditation under the

Textile Exchange has updated their list of banned organizations. The listed organizations may not be certified to any of the Textile Exchange standards for the duration of the ban. Expired bans are also listed so that they may be factored into CB risk assessments. ASR-225 List of Banned Organizations

Bureau Veritas Certification France S.A.S. has transferred its accreditation under the COSMOS accreditation program to COFRAC,  the French Accreditation Committee. The date of transfer was amended to September 13, 2023 due to some administrative issues. Any operations, certification bodies and authorities that relied on this application for accreditation are asked

GOTS have released a procedural document  on complaints handling, investigations and documentation “GOTS Complaints Procedures V1.0“. Please see the document for more details. Global Standard gGmbH (“Global Standard”) operates the Global Organic Textile Standard “GOTS”.

Regulation EU 2023/1686 has been published, allowing witness audits conducted within three years from application of an EU-equivalent CB for recognition to EU-compliance, as well as for defining timelines for conducting next witness audits for the respective scope/s

COSMECERT S.A.S.U  of France has voluntary withdrawn from its accreditation under the ISO/IEC 17065 accreditation program as of September 11th 2023. Cosmecert’s accreditation under the COSMOS scheme remains unaffected. Any operations, certification bodies and authorities that relied on this accreditation are asked to take note.

GOTS have updated their overview on companies which are banned from becoming GOTS certified and from the input approval system. The information on banned companies is available here on the GOTS website.

An updated version of the complied EU Commission responses to frequently asked questions related to organic production and certification has been published. The document can be downloaded from the European Union website here.