Claims and Labeling

Inspire others by promoting certified products

Once you’ve started to source certified products, you might want to tell the world about it, both to show your commitment to climate action and to inspire others to do the same. Anytime you mention our standards, it’s important to follow our policies for claims and labeling. These guidelines not only ensure claims and logo use are clear and accurate, but also help to protect the credibility of our standards and the organizations certified to them.

How it Works

There are several ways in which you can talk about our standards

You can communicate about our standards in different ways, depending on your level of engagement with them. The Standards Claims Policy clearly outlines these different categories of claims, each of which has defined eligibility requirements and guidelines to follow. 

Download the policy
sheep on a rock.
COMMITMENT CLAIMS

Claims about your commitment to our standards

Commitment claims may be made after a company has registered a commitment to one or more of our standards through our online form. Once registered, companies can make “corporate commitment claim” following section A2 of the Standards Claims Policy. When a company had made progress on a registered commitment, they may make a “progress claim,” as outlined in section A4 of the policy. The Standards Commitment Guide provides further guidance on making and registering commitments. 

Further details

  • Claims in this category may be minimally adjusted, as long as the meaning is not lost.
  • Logo use is allowed with these claims. Logos are only distributed to those who register through the online from.

 

alpaca in a field.
ASSURED CLAIMS

Claims for certified organizations or products

Assured claims are only for organizations (such as farms, production facilities, and brands) or products that have met the requirements of an “assurance process.” In other words, this means that they have been certified to one or more of our standards. Requirements for these types of claims can be found in section B of the Standards Claims Policy. 

Further details

  • Only certified companies may make “claims by certified organizations.”
  • “Product-related claims” may be made on final products being sold to consumers (B2C) or products sold between businesses in the supply chain (B2B), such as a yarn maker selling their wool yarns to other companies.
  • Product-related claims can appear both on or off the product.
  • Claims in this category are not approved by Textile Exchange. They must be submitted to and approved by a certification body. See the approval process below for more details.

 

INFORMATIONAL STATEMENTS 

Ready-to-use messages that describe a relevant standard  

Informational statements are ready-to-use messages that describe a relevant standard. They also provide additional context to claims made from other categories. These statements can be used alone, or alongside other claims. More information can be found in section D of the Standards Claims Policy.

PRODUCT LABELING

What to include

  • Standard logo


    The logo of the relevant standard.
  • Percentage

    The percentage of certified material in the product (unless it’s 100% RDS or RAF certified).
  • License number


    Your license number as it appears on your valid scope certificate (SC).
  • Certification body


    The name of your responsible certification body.

    The written content of the claim may be listed out or summarized in a sentence such as “This product contains 50% RWS certified wool, certified by ABC Cert 12345678.” You can refer to the Standards Claims Policy for more instruction.
rws standard tag.
APPROVAL PROCESS

How to make a product-related claim

  • Read the Standards Claims Policy and make sure your product(s) meets the eligibility criteria for product-related claims.

  • Design artwork and draft the claim(s) following the relevant guidance documents.

  • Request and fill in a Claim Approval Application Form from your certification body.

  • Submit the Claim Approval Application Form, along with a digital copy of your artwork, to your certification body.

  • Wait for feedback or approval and make any adjustments needed.

  • Plan for roughly two weeks between the time of submitting your application and artwork until final approval. This may vary between certification bodies and depends on the artwork’s compliance with the guidelines and the product.

  • Once approved, you may publish your claim or print and attach any physical labels to the products.
two standards tags.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have a question not answered here, get in touch with us directly, and we’ll be happy to answer it for you.

Contact us

Can someone from Textile Exchange approve my standard claim or artwork?

No. Only certification bodies are authorized to approve your use of product-related claims or labels. They have in-depth knowledge of our Standards Claims Policy and Standards Logo Use Specifications and will use them to approve your company’s logo use or claim, as well as verify the certification of your product.

Can you send me a standard logo?

No. Logos have to be obtained through the certification body that you or your supplier are working with for certification. We’ll only issue logos for specific uses by media or others who want to promote our standards. 

I have partial chain of custody and my product does not qualify for labeling. How can I communicate about the standards and the efforts we are making?

If you do not have full chain of custody and can’t make a product-related claim, you may still choose to make claims from the three other categories described in the Standards Claims Policy.

Resources

Dive deeper into labeling and making claims

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