Materials Matter Standard.

Textile Exchange is folding its material standards into one voluntary standard covering the production and primary processing of raw materials. The first edition takes in the responsible animal fibre standards for wool, alpaca and mohair and the recycled materials now covered by GRS and RCS; the Content Claim Standard stays in place, carrying chain of custody and product claims. The dates on Textile Exchange’s own page are: criteria released on 12 December 2025, standard effective 31 December 2026, mandatory from 31 December 2027, at which point Tier 4 organisations must take their next audit against it to keep certification. Nothing is retired yet, which is why GRS 5.0 and RCS 3.0 were still reissued in July 2026 with mandatory dates of their own. For a shop the practical read is that the certificate names and logo rules on your blanks change inside two years, and supplier claim text will lag that change by longer. Record which standard and which version a supplier claim referred to on the day you copied it, because “certified” without a version will stop meaning anything specific.