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The Soil Association is one of nine accredited organic certification bodies
in the UK, and by far the largest. Use of the logo is optional, but any product
certified by the Soil Association should have the appropriate organic certification code. Hitherto this has been UK5 but a
a new code GB-ORG-05 was adopted in 2010. The SA certifies cotton
to the global GOTS standard, which it helped to create. There are no legally binding organic standards for skincare products,
so the Soil Association applies its own. However, it has recently been working with BDIH (see below) and
others to develop a common 'COSMOS' standard. Whatever the product, Soil Association certification
carries considerable weight, and SA standards generally exceed legal requirements. |
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This is the new EU organic logo, and it has to be displayed on all new EU-produced pre-packaged organic food
and beverage products with effect from 1 July 2010. Existing products will have to be changed by 1 January 2012.
Its implementation has been very controversial, because many organizations, like the Soil Association, certify
to a higher standard that the EU legal requirement. As a result, products may still bear the logo of the actual national
or private certifying organization responsible for the product in question - something the EU originally opposed. It remains to be seen whether the
use of the logo will become widespread on non-food products. |
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This is the old EU organic logo, which is now obsolete, but which will probably still be found
on products until January 2012, when all relevant products are required to display the new logo.
Unlike the new leaf logo, the use of this one was optional, and it was very unpopular because it
looked just like a whole range of other EU product labels. At best it told the consumer that something
was European, but not that it was organic. At worst, it might be confused with one of the other similar EU
labels, making the consumer think that something was organic, when in fact it wasn't. |
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The
Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) was published in 2006 and has already achieved
wide recognition, superseding schemes operated previously by a number of certifying bodies. It covers all organic
fibres, not just cotton, and is the most ambitious system yet devised for certifying textiles and textile products along
the whole supply chain, taking social and environmental factors into account. A product cannot bear the GOTS logo unless
it has passed inspection at each stage in the supply chain. Some certifying bodies — the Soil Association, for example — may use their own logo rather than (or as well as) the GOTS logo. GOTS is the standard the product
has been certified to, not the body that has carried out the certification. There is tight regulation of the bodies
authorized to certify to the GOTS standard — twelve in number as of January 2010, the four of which most likely to
be encountered in the UK being EcoCert (France), Control Union (Netherlands), IMO (Switzerland) and Soil Association (UK). |
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The EKO logo is the symbol of the Dutch organic certification body
SKAL. SKAL is not currently licensed to certifiy textiles to the GOTS standard, but is still one of the
leading certifiers of organic cotton. The organic cotton in Esme's carriers is certified by SKAL. |
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This is the logo of the
BDIH Standard, a German industry standard for natural and organic cosmetics. Whilst it is
quite common in the UK for cosmetics and skincare products to be certified by the organic food
labelling agencies (especially the Soil Association), the BDIH standard has
achieved international recognition as a meaningful standard for cosmetics, and an English version of
the logo has been in use for several years.The BDIH has in fact recently joined
forces with the Soil Association and certification bodies from France and Italy in order to devise a
true international standard (known as COSMOS) for natural and organic cosmetic and skincare products.
This can be seen as a response to the manufacturer-led NaTrue initiative, which has recently implemented
such a standard, with some producers already switching allegiance from BDIH to NaTrue. |
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This is the
NaTrue label for natural cosmetics, which also comes in one, two and three-star variants. NaTrue (based in Brussels) belongs
to a consortium of leading natural skincare and toiletries manufacturers and claims wider international legitimacy and more transparent and rigorous
critera than BDIH and others. Whilst these claims may be open to debate, the label can certainly be treated as
a serious one. One star is applied to products that meet basic criteria for a natural product, with the
criteria varying according to the type of product. Two-star products are those with a high proportion of organically
cultivated or wild-harvested ingredients, while 3-star products are, in effect, completely organic. Some product types
cannot currently achieve 3-star status. This relatively new label is in competition with BDIH, though some
products carry dual certification. |
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Cosmebio is not a certifying body as such, but a member organization
which seeks to raise the profile of its members' natural and organic products. However, as its critera are based on
certification by major certification bodies such as Ecocert, it can be taken as a reliable indication of the product's nature. Of Cosmebio's
two standards, 'Bio' and 'Eco', it is the 'Bio' standard which indicates an organic product: 95% of the ingredients must
be of natural origin and 95% or the certifiable ingredients must be organic. The German publication Öko-Test gives Cosmebio
its seal of approval as an indicator of 'genuine natural cosmetics'. |
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Organic Farmers and Growers is the UK's second largest organic certication body. It is mainly concerned with
food certification, but does have a scheme for organic skincare and cosmetics. Its certification agency
code has hitherto been UK2 but is changing under new rules to GB-ORG-02 (this should appear on any certified product , even if the logo is not used). |
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This is the non-food variant of the
Organic Food Federation's logo. Another nationwide UK organic certification agency, founded in 1986, the Organic Food Federation has hitherto had the certification agency
code UK4, under the new rules GB-ORG-04.
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EcoCert is one of the more commonly encountered non-UK organic certification logos on products sold in this country. Based in France,
but with a very strong international presence, the certification agency EcoCert is about as dominant in France as the Soil Association is in the UK,
and is very active in the certification of non-food products such as cotton and cosmetics. Its certification code is FR-BIO-01.
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This is an interesting logo, as it has no real counterpart in the UK. It belongs to the French Ministry of Agriculture
(Agence Bio)and may
be used on any eligible organic product, regardless of which authorised body has certified it. It is rather like a French
version of the old (voluntary) EU organic logo described above. The obvious difference is that the AB logo has
extremely high recognition amongst the French population — almost 90 per cent. In this country you are most likely to see this label on a bottle
of organic French wine.
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