“You trust me without even really knowing me. I am what comes closest to your skin. I warm you, and you warm me. Who am I?”
The riddle is the only dialogue in Oeko-Tex’s roughly 35-second campaign film. The spot moves between home and outdoor scenes and close-ups of textiles before ending the message with “Follow the label.”
The textile testing and certification organization is launching “Trust in Every Thread” on Oct. 12 as its new guiding principle. The campaign focuses on the testing and traceability behind labels on clothing and home textiles.
The launch follows the Sept. 27 start of rules under the EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECGT). The measure prohibits sustainability labels unless they are established by public authorities or based on a qualifying certification scheme.
For private schemes, the requirements include publicly available criteria, independent monitoring of compliance and procedures to withdraw or suspend a label when requirements are breached. The monitor must be independent of both the scheme owner and the company using the label.
Oeko-Tex’s Standard 100 certification requires articles to meet its limits for more than 1,000 harmful substances. Its criteria cover components such as buttons, zippers and thread, and the organization reviews the limit values at least once a year.
The requirements depend on the product’s intended use and degree of skin contact. Items for babies and children up to age three face the strictest limits.
Oeko-Tex also says a quarter of its certificates are retested through its quality control program. Its oversight includes site visits and audits.
“Trust is not a word you can put on a label. It is built in the places nobody looks: in the button, the zipper, the thread, in the limits we revise every year because the science moves, in a quarter of our certificates we go back and retest,” said Inga Bleyer, Oeko-Tex’s head of marketing and communication, in a statement. “A garment that has passed through that is not a louder promise than the one next to it. It is a verified one.”
While Standard 100 focuses on harmful substances in the product, the organization’s Made in Green label also addresses production conditions and traceability. It combines product certification with requirements for manufacturing facilities under Oeko-Tex’s Step program, which assesses environmental and social conditions. A product ID or QR code lets shoppers access information about where and how the item was made.
The scope of a claim remains relevant under the EU rules. The directive bars brands from turning a benefit tied to one feature into an environmental claim about the whole product. It also restricts vague language such as “eco-friendly.”
Oeko-Tex has also changed its governance in response to the directive. In an Aug. 19 announcement, it described a separation between standard setting and conformity assessment, alongside a new independence council and an anonymous whistleblowing system.
“Consumer protection begins with trust, and trust only arises when what is claimed is independently verified. We anchor independence even more firmly and make it transparently verifiable for everyone. This gives our customers, and the people who see our labels in shops every day, the certainty that they can rely fully on Oeko-Tex,” CEO Alfred J. Beerli said in a statement.
The organization reported more than 13 percent growth in demand for Made in Green in its 2025-26 annual report, announced in September.
The campaign encourages consumers to consider three things: the claim, the proof and access to that proof. Oeko-Tex’s existing Label Check tool allows shoppers to scan a QR code or enter a certificate number or product ID to verify a label and view the information associated with it.