Rahul Bhajekar: Industry bodies are all showing growing interest in traceability

As global regulations tighten, the Indian textile industry faces a critical turning point in balancing genuine sustainability with market compliance. In this exclusive interview, Rahul Bhajekar, Managing Director of the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), breaks down the realities of greenwashing, the complexities of supply chain traceability, and the hurdles manufacturers face with Divya Shetty. He outlines how robust, independent third-party verification remains the ultimate antidote to superficial claims.

To what extent are Indian textile manufacturers genuinely implementing sustainable practices, and how can these be independently verified?

The picture is mixed, and the gap between genuine implementation and compliance exists, but it is narrowing.

India is one of the world’s largest textile producers and has major strengths, including deep manufacturing expertise, a large organic cotton base, and growing engagement with internationally recognised sustainability systems. A meaningful segment of its export-oriented industry has made real, verifiable investments in organic cotton farming, wastewater treatment, chemical management, and social compliance within textile value chains. States like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Karnataka have clusters where third-party certified facilities are concentrated, and these represent genuine, audited practice.

However, the broader industry landscape still contains a large informal or semi-formal tier where sustainability claims are largely self-declared. Marketing language such as “eco-friendly,” “natural,” “green,” or “sustainable” appears on product tags and company websites without any underlying certification or independent verification. This is a textbook definition of greenwashing — not necessarily always with intent to deceive, but certainly without the rigour to substantiate the claim.

In our view, independent third-party verification remains the most credible way to distinguish a genuine sustainability claim from greenwashing. This includes:

• A documented and audited standard — one that defines what “sustainable” actually means in measurable, verifiable terms across both environmental and social dimensions.
• Third-party certification by accredited bodies — not self-assessment, not buyer audits alone, but independent Certification Bodies (CBs) accredited against internationally recognised norms such as ISO 17065.
• Transaction certificates (TCs) — which verify that a specific product or shipment actually went through certified operations, not just that a facility holds a certificate.
• Chain of Custody — an unbroken, documented flow of the product from farm or fibre through every processing stage to the finished good.

GOTS, for instance, mandates all the above. A GOTS label cannot legally appear on a product unless every stage of processing — from ginning through spinning, weaving or knitting, dyeing, finishing, and stitching — has been independently certified, and a transaction certificate has been issued for that specific lot. That is a fundamentally different architecture from a brand simply saying “we use organic cotton.”

The industry and buyers must understand this distinction: A Scope Certificate is a verification of the ability to operate under the standard; a transaction certificate is proof that a specific product was made under it. Both are absolutely necessary.

How traceable are sustainable claims in Indian textile products, from raw material to final production? What systems and technologies are used?

Traceability in Indian textiles is improving, although challenges remain due to the complexity and fragmentation of global production networks. The core challenge is that Indian textile supply chains are often highly fragmented — with farming, ginning, spinning, weaving, processing, and garmenting frequently occurring at different units, sometimes in different states, sometimes involving informal job-work arrangements. This fragmentation makes end-to-end traceability structurally difficult.

What currently exists and functions:

• Standards-based chain of custody remains the most robust mechanism. Under GOTS, every operator in the supply chain must be independently certified, and transaction certificates are issued and recorded at each transfer of goods. This creates a document trail that a brand, buyer, or regulator can follow from the finished garment back to the certified gin.
• The GOTS public database is a publicly accessible platform where any buyer or consumer can verify whether a facility is certified and whether a transaction certificate is valid. This kind of public, real-time verification infrastructure is critical and often underappreciated.
• Global Standard is also soon to fully make operational its Global Trace-Base, a central database which will permit even more traceability information. 
• Blockchain-based traceability pilots have been attempted by several Indian exporters and brands — notably in the cotton sector. These technologies show potential, but digital systems are only as reliable as the quality of the underlying verification processes. Technology alone cannot replace physical audits and verification at source.

What is missing or weak:

The informal processing sector — job-work dyers, small wet processors, embroiderers — remains largely outside any traceability system. Brands that source from aggregators or trading houses often have limited visibility beyond their immediate supplier. This is where greenwashing most easily enters the chain — a brand may genuinely source certified organic fibre but then process it through an uncertified facility, breaking the chain of custody while continuing to market the product as sustainable.

Maintaining integrity in complex global textile supply chains therefore remains critically important. To address this, Global Standard and the GOTS system continuously strengthen integrity measures through mechanisms such as risk-based auditing, mandatory transaction certificates, stricter due diligence requirements for Certification Bodies, supply-chain monitoring, and targeted investigations where irregularities are identified.

Global Standard is also investing in technology-driven approaches to strengthen traceability further. This includes collaborations such as the Satellite Cotton Monitoring Project with the European Space Agency (ESA), which explores how satellite data and geospatial analysis can support more robust verification and risk assessment within cotton supply chains.

Public certification databases, transaction verification systems, and close cooperation with Certification Bodies and industry stakeholders all play an important role in strengthening transparency, trust, and accountability across the system.

What are the major challenges Indian textile exporters face in obtaining internationally recognised sustainability certifications, given increasingly stringent EU and global requirements?

This is perhaps the most practically important question for the Indian industry right now, as sustainability requirements, particularly in the EU, are rapidly evolving from voluntary expectations into mandatory market-access obligations.

Many Indian manufacturers are already well-positioned to adapt, given the country’s strong manufacturing base, technical expertise, and long-standing role in global textile supply chains.

Some of the key areas manufacturers are currently navigating include:

Building internal compliance and traceability systems: In order to meet regulatory requirements, companies are increasingly required to have structured documentation, traceability processes, staff training, and ongoing compliance management. For many companies, particularly MSMEs, this represents a transition toward more formalised systems and greater supply-chain transparency.

While this can require additional investment and capacity building, it also creates opportunities for stronger market access, long-term buyer relationships, and increased credibility in international markets. Standards such as GOTS are designed to support companies throughout this transition by providing a clear framework for traceability, environmental and social criteria, due diligence, and supply-chain verification. Through guidance documents, training initiatives, publicly available implementation resources, and continuous alignment with evolving international legislation and due diligence expectations, GOTS helps companies build more robust and future-ready compliance systems.

Managing compliant inputs and documentation: International sustainability requirements increasingly extend beyond certified fibres to include dyes, auxiliaries, chemical inputs, and broader supply-chain documentation. Managing verification processes across multiple supply-chain partners can therefore become more complex, particularly for smaller operators.

Standards such as GOTS help companies address this complexity by providing a clear and internationally recognised framework for approved inputs, traceability, chemical management, and supply-chain verification. At the same time, India’s well-developed textile ecosystem and growing availability of compliant inputs continue to support manufacturers in meeting these expectations more effectively.

Technical training and awareness: A significant number of Indian manufacturers — especially in Tier 2 and Tier 3 supply chain positions — are often not aware of what certification entails, what the standard actually requires, or how to initiate the process. There is a tendency to conflate having a corporate sustainability policy with being certification-ready. The gap between the two is often large and requires sustained capacity building.

Since international expectations evolve, investments in training, traceability systems, chemical management, and sustainability expertise are a must.

Capacity building will remain an important part of this transition, particularly for MSMEs. Global Standard supports this process through implementation guidance, training initiatives, due diligence resources, and ongoing collaboration with Certification Bodies and industry stakeholders to help facilities better understand and successfully implement internationally recognised requirements.

Responding to evolving international regulation: Initiatives such as the EU Green Deal, ESPR, CSDDD, and future Digital Product Passport requirements are increasing expectations around traceability, due diligence, and supply-chain transparency.

In this evolving landscape, internationally recognised standards such as GOTS can help companies build more robust compliance systems and prepare more effectively for future regulatory and buyer expectations. By combining environmental and social criteria with traceability and independent verification, GOTS certification can provide companies with a more structured pathway toward compliance readiness.

Managing multiple customer and certification requirements: Exporters are often asked to comply with a wide range of standards and customer-specific requirements, which can increase operational complexity.

One important advantage of internationally recognised standards such as GOTS is that they provide companies with a more harmonised and credible framework that can support multiple sustainability, due diligence, and transparency expectations simultaneously. This can help simplify communication with buyers and strengthen confidence across global supply chains.

How are Indian regulators, industry bodies, and brands responding — and what gaps remain that could lead to superficial compliance rather than substantive improvement?

Engagement within the Indian textile sector has increased significantly in recent years. Industry bodies like CITI, TEXPROCIL, and CII, brands, exporters, and policymakers are all showing growing interest in traceability, transparency, and internationally recognised sustainability systems.

India continues to play an important role in organic cotton production and sustainable textile manufacturing globally and the Indian government’s Textile Policy discussions increasingly reference sustainability. 

However, the critical gaps are:

Enforcement and market surveillance are weak: There is a need for stronger and more consistent market surveillance around sustainability-related claims. In many markets globally, including India, enforcement mechanisms are still evolving, which can make it difficult to ensure that all claims are independently verifiable. A brand can label a product “sustainable” or “organic” in the domestic market with virtually no legal consequence, even if the claim is fraudulent or wholly unsubstantiated. This creates a two-tier situation: export-facing manufacturers invest in genuine certification because foreign buyers and regulations demand it; domestically-oriented businesses can make identical claims without accountability.

Capacity building is underfunded and fragmented: There is no systematic, government-backed programme to help Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers understand and access international certification. While a range of valuable initiatives already exist from industry bodies, brands, and development organisations, continued collaboration and broader capacity-building efforts will be important to help more Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers access and implement internationally recognised certification systems.. The EU’s Green Deal supply chain requirements will affect hundreds of thousands of workers and thousands of facilities in India. The scale of capacity building required is not matched by current investment.

The risk of superficial compliance is real: There is a broader industry challenge of ensuring that compliance efforts translate into real operational improvements rather than becoming primarily documentation-driven exercises. The antidote is standards architecture that is designed to resist this — with unannounced audits, scope that covers the full supply chain rather than just headline facilities, and public accountability through certificate databases. This is precisely why the design of the standard matters enormously, and why self-declaration and proprietary scorecards cannot substitute for third-party certification against a publicly available, independently governed standard.

The Indian textile industry has genuine capacity to lead on sustainable production — the raw material base, the manufacturing depth, and the human skill are all present. What is needed is honest acknowledgement that greenwashing — even when unintentional — undermines the credibility of the entire sector, and that the investment in genuine, verifiable certification is not a compliance cost but a competitive and reputational asset in a market environment that is rapidly making it non-negotiable.