Growing consumer interest in organic products has prompted an increasing number of textile brands and retailers to develop and market lines of organic cotton textiles. Under its Econfidence programme, German-based supplier of products and services for the textile industry DyStar has co-operated with organisations such as the Institute for Market Ecology, which has been helping in the development and implementation of the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), and with Control Union Certifications, which licenses the Skal International Standard for Sustainable Textile Production, to obtain approval for dyes and pigments to be used on organic textiles.

It was one of the first companies to have its textile colorants approved for use with the GOTS standard and now has a comprehensive list of products including Sirius direct dyes, Indanthren vat dyes, Levafix, Remazol and Procion reactive dyes, Imperon pigments and DyStar Indigo Solution 40% that qualify for the GOTS standard.

Dr John Easton, of the company’s Textile Services Marketing Unit said, “Although organic cotton is still only a niche within the global cotton market, it has gained an extremely high profile with retailers and consumers in Europe over the past twelve months.”