CERTIFICATION PROCESS

CERTIFICATION GRANTING

ESTS, upon the approval from its Certification Decision Making Entity, issues a certificate (the “Certificate”) to the Client. Further to the audits, the Certification Decision Making Entity has the right to decide on the refusal, granting, maintaining, renewing, expanding the scope of, reducing the scope of, suspending, reinstating, or withdrawing the certification. At the expiration date of the Certificate, a re-certification audit may be proceeded in order to review the Client’s activities and allow a certificate renewal.

ESTS reserves the right to delay or postpone its decision on certification in order to take account of new or additional information which has not already been considered in its audit report and which, in the opinion of the certification body, could affect the outcome of its evaluation.

CERTIFICATE EXTENSION AND REDUCTION

During its period of validity, the certificate holder may require an extension of the scope of its certificate but cannot extend the period of validity of the certificate. ESTS reserves the right to inspect the site of the specified operation before agreeing to the scope extension. In case of scope modification requirement, the certificate holder shall return its old certificate in order to receive a new one with the new wording for the scope.

A reduction certificate scope may also be considered on request from the Client to ESTS.

CERTIFICATE SUSPENDING

When any of the following conditions exist, the client's certification will be suspending:

The organization cannot correct the critical non-conformity immediately on the audit days in annual or recertification audit.

The organization cannot correct the major non-conformity in 30 days in annual or recertification audit.

ESTS shall investigate through appropriate ways including surveillance audits when onsite investigation is necessary and respond to tips and complaints about fraudulent products or services with appropriate action. If it is found that the applicant is knowingly and/or repeatedly operating with non-conformities or purposely violates the requirements of the standard; ESTS shall suspend the certification status and inform TE. The client will be allowed to re-apply for certification two years after the date of the suspension.

CERTIFICATE WITHDRAWING

When any of the following conditions exist, the client's certification will be withdrawn:

If a scope certificate is suspended for 180 days or until its expiry date whichever is sooner – the scope certificate shall be withdrawn.

The client ceases to exist as a legal entity in its form as certified.

In annual audit, the certification decision is not made within 60 days of the audit.

If the certified organization is identified in the list of “restricted entity” or “Banned Organizations”.

ESTS CERTIFICATION COST

The ESTS certification costs are devised as follows:

Audit costs (certification audit, surveillance audit, possibly additional audit), including time for audit preparation, audit realization and reporting
Certificate Administration cost, including client service charge, certificate delivery, etc.
Audit travel and accommodation expenses
TE Certification Fee withheld as per Textile Exchange Certification Fee Structure

Upon request, actual fee schedule for specific standard will be shared.

CERTIFICATE QUERY

For information query of certified company or products, please refer to TE's website: https://textileexchange.org/find-certified-company/

CERTIFICATION STANDARDS

CCS Standard

CCS-101 Content Claim Standard (CCS) - Textile Exchange

CCS-201 CCS User Manual - Textile Exchange

GRS Standard V 4.0

Microsoft Word - Global Recycled Standard - FINAL.docx

Microsoft Word - GRS-v4.1-Implementation-Manual.docx

GRS Standard V 5.0

GRS-101 Global Recycled Standard (GRS) - Textile Exchange