Sustainability claims are only as good as your proof.

By Becca Anderson

We have published numerous articles about companies and their sustainability efforts. It can all look very good on paper, but where’s the proof? And how do you get it?

For some areas of the industry, the proof comes from independent testing labs, like the  Hohenstein Institute, an 80-year-old, third-generation family-owned company based in Bönnigheim, Germany, with labs and offices around the world (including one in Ligonier, IN.)

The average cleaner spends all day dealing with results: stains, shrinkage, damaged garments, customer complaints, regulations, changing chemistry.

Hohenstein spends all day asking:

• Why did this fabric fail?
• Is this chemistry actually safe?
• How can sustainability claims be verified?
• What standards should the industry use?
• How do we prove something instead of just marketing it?

We spoke with Ben Mead, Managing Director of Hohenstein America, to learn more about the role of independent testing labs in the realm of sustainability.

North American laundry and dry or wet cleaning operators may have heard the name Hohenstein, but don’t really know what you do. How would you explain your role in the textile industry?

We are an independent testing, research and certification lab. Brands and manufacturers send us their products and materials, and we check whether they are safe for people and the planet, whether they are durable or function properly, and whether they meet the rules of the markets they sell into. We are family-owned and science-focused. We put independent data and reputation behind performance and sustainability claims, and help companies comply with global requirements.

Many people recognize the OEKO-TEX® certifications [more on that later], such as STANDARD 100, which means that a product passed testing for harmful substances. We are a founding member of OEKO-TEX®. We also work with laundries directly providing auditing and certification of laundry processes for hygienic cleanliness.

The Neutral Third Party

Where do you fit between textile manufacturers, brands, chemical suppliers and commercial cleaners?

We are the neutral third party. We do not make textiles, sell chemicals or own brands, so we gain nothing from whether a product passes or fails. Our job is to get the result right, whatever it is. A chemical supplier can have us screen a dye or finish before it goes into production. A mill can have its facility reviewed for how it manages water, energy and worker safety. A brand can have a finished shirt tested against a list of regulated substances.

Laundries connect with us on both the facility and product level. They may use products we certified or tested upstream. Our Hohenstein Hygienically Clean® certification verifies a laundry’s hygiene process on site. We also test detergent effectiveness, how textiles hold up to repeated washing, and whether a wash cycle is cleaning well without wearing the fabric out too fast.

What Happens There, Comes Here

Many of our readers own commercial laundries or dry-cleaning plants. They’re focused on today’s production schedule—not European regulations. Five years from now, how will the work you’re doing affect their businesses?

The regulations may start in Europe, but they do not stay there. Any brand selling globally has to meet the strictest market it ships to, and it tends to apply that standard everywhere because running two systems is expensive. Much of the material and care data those rules require comes from testing and certification work like ours, so what we do today shapes the information that will arrive attached to the garment’s care process guidelines.

Supply chains for laundry inputs are global too. The uniforms, linens and detergents that a plant buys are made and formulated all over the world, and over the next five years those inputs will carry more documentation. The plants that treat that data as useful rather than as a nuisance will have an easier time.

Laundries may also be affected by local wastewater regulations, which have a relationship to these global regulations for detergents and textiles. Anything that is in a product and could be washed into the wastewater should be considered in their compliance requirements.

A Number Rather than a Slogan

Which sustainability trends do you think North American operators underestimate today?

Keeping a product in use longer is one of the largest sustainability levers there is, and cleaners are directly in that business. Every garment a cleaner extends the life of is one that does not get replaced. We measure this side of it, how many wash cycles a textile survives before it fails, so durability is a number rather than a slogan. That is not a side benefit of their work. It is the environmental case for it.

Another topic that stands out is microfibers. Every wash releases tiny fibers into the water. How much depends on the textile and the process. Regulators and brands are starting to pay attention, and laundries move a lot of water. It is early, but this is the kind of issue that shows up as a customer question before it shows up as a rule.

Many companies talk about sustainability. How do you distinguish meaningful progress from marketing claims? What kinds of evidence convince you that a sustainability claim is legitimate?

I spent years building restricted substance programs before coming to Hohenstein, so I am hard to convince. A real claim is specific, and an independent, third party stands behind it. “More sustainable” tells me nothing. “Tested against this standard, by this lab, to these limits, with a certificate you can check and validate” tells me something. If I cannot verify a claim without taking the company’s word for it, I do not take it seriously.

Following the Garment’s Trail

We keep hearing terms like Digital Product Passport and traceability. What do these actually mean for someone processing garments every day?

A Digital Product Passport, as currently proposed, would be a digital record tied to a specific product. The idea is that scanning a code shows what an item is made of, where the stages of production happened, what chemicals were involved and how to care for it. Traceability is the plainer idea underneath it, being able to follow a product back through the stages it passed and the suppliers who made it. The passport is where that trail would be written down. Europe is expected to require it for textiles, but the requirements and dates are not settled yet.

For a plant, the near-term value is practical. Better fiber and care information means fewer ruined items and fewer arguments with customers. Over time, the record may also want to know how a garment was cleaned and repaired, which makes the care process part of the product’s history rather than an afterthought.

What OEKO-TEX® Really Means

Many people recognize the OEKO-TEX® label without understanding what it actually certifies. Could you explain the program and its different certifications in practical terms?

Hohenstein cofounded OEKO-TEX® in 1992, when public concern about chemicals in textiles was rising and the industry had no common standard for testing them. It has grown into a system of tools, certifications and product labels, covering the entire textile and leather supply chain.

OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 is the most established and best known. It was the first restricted substances list in the textile industry, testing against 100 chemicals in 1992 and more than 1,000 today. Many brand and industry lists are based on it or reference it, and it is updated every year to stay ahead of regulation, science and production methods. Every component of a product, down to the thread and buttons, is rigorously tested.

• OEKO-TEX® LEATHER STANDARD does the same for leather. 
• OEKO-TEX® ECO PASSPORT works upstream, screening the dyes, inks, auxiliaries and chemicals before they enter production. 
• OEKO-TEX® STeP certifies a factory itself on chemical management, environmental performance, worker health and safety and social conditions. 
• OEKO-TEX® MADE IN GREEN ties these together in a traceable label showing a product was tested and made in certified facilities, and each one carries an ID you can look up. 
• OEKO-TEX® ORGANIC COTTON verifies organic content with robust fraud prevention. 
• OEKO-TEX® RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS helps companies check their supply chains for human rights and environmental risk.

Does OEKO-TEX® certification affect how garments should be cleaned or maintained over their lifetime?

Not directly. OEKO-TEX® certifications cover what a product is made of and how it was produced. They are not care instructions. How an operator cleans an item still comes down to fiber, construction and the manufacturer’s care label. There is one indirect link: if fewer restricted chemicals go into a product and its production, less can leach out during laundering.

From Care to End of Garment Life

If you could give one piece of sustainability advice to every commercial laundry or dry cleaner in North America, what would it be?

Learn more about what is going into your facility, whether it’s the chemicals or the textile products. Your customers are increasingly going to expect you to know, and the local authorities are going to increasingly hold you accountable for what flows out.  I also advise you to start identifying opportunities to reduce water and energy impacts, even if they are small.

Looking ahead ten years, what will textile care professionals be doing differently because of sustainability that many of them aren’t thinking about today?

As textile-to-textile recycling becomes a more important topic, textile care professionals could be playing an important part in that chain from care to end of life. There may also be more information available about specific products, allowing operators to sort them more precisely and use specialized care cycles that reduce water and energy use.

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