Organic and Eco-Friendly Products

What does ‘Eco-friendly’ mean?

‘Eco-friendly’ can be defined as both not harming the environment or proactively preventing environmental damage. There is no international standard for the use of ‘eco-friendly’ as a label, and is really too vague a lot of the time to be really useful. However it does encompass a philosophy, that in combination with organic certification, that helps consumers choose their products more wisely.

Basically the eco-friendliness of a product will depend on the renewability of the resources used, its ecological footprint, its biodegradability and the amount of synthetic chemicals used throughout the product life cycle. These chemicals include fertilisers, pesticides, antibiotics, food additives, hormones, fungicides, and so on. Eco-friendly products are also free from genetically modified organisms.

Eco-friendly Children’s Clothing

What qualifies as eco-friendly children’s clothing? Organic textiles and clothing must be certified by an independent certifier to ensure the integrity of the product, who also sets the standards for the industry.  The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) sets basic standards upon which individual countries can base their standards. These standards apply to the growth, storage, processing, packaging and shipping aspects of the product.

Some of these standards include the avoidance of synthetic chemical inputs, use of farmland that has been chemical-free for a number of years, keeping a detailed written production and sales record, maintaining strict physical separation of organic products from non-certified products and undergoing periodic on-site inspections. In many countries the commercial use of the term ‘organic’ is legally restricted to those who conform to national standards. They are also subject to the agricultural and food safety regulations that apply to non-certified producers.

Examples of eco-friendly children’s clothing would include articles made from organic textiles such as bamboo fibre, yak down, hemp, jute, organic cotton, soy and milk silk.