OEKO-TEX STeP.

STeP certifies a production facility, not a product. OEKO-TEX analyses a site through six modules, chemical management, environmental performance, environmental management, social responsibility, quality management and health and safety, by way of a self-assessment questionnaire, an auditor’s on-site verification and corrective actions, then issues a certificate that runs for three years. It covers every facility type across textile and leather production, from fibre manufacturing and spinning or tanning through finishing and making-up. The confusion runs the opposite way to most certification confusion: buyers see STeP on a supplier page and read it as a claim about the goods, when it says the site was audited and says nothing about what came off the line that day. STeP is also the gate to the product label, since MADE IN GREEN requires the making-up facilities to be STeP certified, so a supplier holding STeP and no product certificate is at the start of that path rather than the end of it.