DIN CEN/TS 16822:2016-02

This Technical Specification has been written to assist companies in the textile supply chain in establishing self-declared environmental claims for textile products, based on accurate and verifiable information, and to harmonize the use of self-declared environmental claims in order to assist end-users in purchasing textile products with a lower negative environmental impact and to increase environmental awareness. It is essential that self-declared environmental claims for textile products are reliable and based on a clear, transparent, accurate and documented methodology. The self-declared environmental claims for textile products can be made by any company in the textile supply chain, including manufacturers, importers, wholesalers, retailers and so on. In many industries, including textiles, there are countless offerings of "green" products and their number is steadily increasing. The environment is now the focus of many companies' strategies. However, this tendency leads to rampant declarations about textile products, and these declarations are sometimes difficult to understand, such as "sustainable", "responsible", "organic", "natural", "biodegradable", or may even be misused, such as "greenwashing". The purpose of this Technical Specification is to provide answers to the following questions: What is the meaning of these terms and what can they actually guarantee? How can we accurately identify the environmental characteristics of the textile products in question? What are the practical conditions for the use of these terms? The environmental claims for textile products are possible in the form of written or graphic explanations or symbols on product or packaging labels or in product literature, such as technical bulletins, company advertisements, promotional materials and so on. This Technical Specification establishes guidelines for the development and use of self-declared environmental claims for textiles (for example fibres, yarns, fabrics), textile products (for example clothing) and textile components of products (for example, upholstery fabric in furniture), which includes principles, methodology and rules for some terms commonly used in environmental claims. This Technical Specification does not provide any substitute for any legal requirements applicable to textile products, related to environmental information, environmental claims or labelling, or any other legal requirement. This document (CEN/TS 16822:2015) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 248 "Textiles and textile products", the secretariat of which is held by BSI (United Kingdom). The committee responsible for this standard is Working Committee NA 106-01-20 AA "Ökologische, umweltfreundliche Textilien" ("Ecological, environmentally friendly textiles") at DIN Standards Committee Textiles and Textile Machinery (Textilnorm).