GRS and RCS to Materials Matter Standard: What Changes for Spinners and Fabric Mills, and When

Textile Exchange’s Materials Matter Standard can be used for audits from 31 December 2026 and is mandatory from 31 December 2027. From that date it supersedes the Global Recycled Standard (GRS), the Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) and the Responsible Wool, Mohair and Alpaca Standards (Materials Matter Transition Policy (TE-MM-POL-102), section B).

For a spinner or a fabric mill, the bigger change is where the audit happens. The new standard is audited only at Tier 4: recyclers, farms and other primary processors. Spinners and fabric mills move to the Content Claim Standard (CCS), which covers chain of custody and nothing else. The GRS social, environmental and chemical requirements at your site end with your GRS certificate, which is withdrawn by 31 March 2029 at the latest. This page sets out the dates, what changes at the mill, what happens to GRS and RCS stock, and what your buyer will ask for.

Materials Matter Standard: the dates

Sources: the Transition Policy; the Claims and Labelling Policy (TE-MM-POL-301); the Policy for Scope and Transaction Certificates (TE-TXL-POL-203 V4.0); GRS 5.0; RCS 3.0.

What it replaces, and what it does not

• Superseded on 31 December 2027: GRS, RCS, the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS), the Responsible Mohair Standard (RMS) and the Responsible Alpaca Standard (RAS).
• Not affected: the Organic Content Standard (OCS) and the Responsible Down Standard (RDS). Both stay outside Materials Matter and carry on under their own rules.
• Kept and widened: the CCS becomes the chain-of-custody standard for the whole Materials Matter system, from the recycler to the brand.

The transition documents name GRS 4.0 and RCS 2.0 as the editions superseded. Textile Exchange has since issued GRS 5.0 and RCS 3.0, urgent revisions limited in scope, which bring in the revised Reclaimed Material Declaration Form. Both could be used from 1 July 2026 and are mandatory for GRS and RCS audits from 31 December 2026, so any GRS audit after that date is to GRS 5.0.

Where a spinner and a fabric mill sit

Textile Exchange’s Supply Chain Taxonomy puts recycling into fibre or filament in Tier 4, spinning in Tier 3, and fabric manufacture, dyeing and printing in Tier 2. The Scope and Eligibility Policy (TE-MM-POL-101) applies the Materials Matter Standard to Tier 4 and the CCS to Tiers 0 to 3. For mechanical recycling, the Tier 4 stage ends at the staple fibre, after shredding, opening and garnetting, so a spinner buying garnetted fibre is Tier 3. Two cases need care:

• Recycled polyester filament. For bottle-to-yarn and other thermo-mechanical or chemical recycling, primary processing runs through extrusion and texturising to POY, FDY and DTY. A producer of recycled filament yarn is a Tier 4 primary processor and is audited to the Materials Matter Standard itself.
• Recycling and spinning under one roof. When a recycler also spins, weaves or knits, its Materials Matter certificate covers those stages too: the management system applies to the whole organisation, the site signs a commitment statement, and auditors may review the downstream stages. It may also opt for full Materials Matter certification of every stage on site.

What changes at your site

Sources: GRS 5.0 sections A3, B, C and D; the Scope and Eligibility Policy (TE-MM-POL-101) sections 1 and 5; the Claims and Labelling Policy (TE-MM-POL-301) section 2.6; the Transition Policy sections 1.1, 1.4 and 1.6.

The practical result: a brand that used your GRS certificate as evidence of labour, environmental and chemical controls at your site will not get that evidence from a Textile Exchange certificate once GRS goes, unless you add the optional modules Textile Exchange says it will publish during 2027. The lower 30% label threshold replaces GRS’s 50%, but it applies only to the final product sold to consumers. Yarn and fabric traded between businesses need 5% to go on a transaction certificate.

Chain of custody stays physical

Under the CCS, certified material is identified and kept apart from other material at every stage. Blending is allowed, batch by batch, with a composition calculation that accounts for the loss factor of each input (CCS sections D3 and D4). The documents provide no mass-balance or credit model for spinners and fabric mills. The one credit-based route, alternative volume reconciliation (VR2), is limited to recyclers running continuous processes, in the version this page checked to chemical recycling by depolymerisation. Under Materials Matter its output takes the “no label” claims category: it can travel on transaction certificates but cannot be labelled to consumers (standard-specific details (TE-TXL-POL-204), section 1.1.2).

Worked example: a 20% blend that certifies below 20%

Because the claim follows the fibre that actually comes out, a blend batched exactly at a threshold falls below it when the recycled fibre is lost faster than the virgin. Take an open-end spinner (the figures are invented for illustration, not a real mill’s) blending 2,000 kg of mechanically recycled cotton with 8,000 kg of virgin cotton, and losing 12% of the recycled stream and 6% of the virgin stream in blowroom and carding. The site’s recycled content calculator gives:

• Content on input: 20.00%. Content on output: 18.97%, a shortfall of 1.03 points.
• Output: 9,280.00 kg, of which 1,760.00 kg is recycled and 7,520.00 kg virgin.
• To reach 20% on the output, the batch needs 2,136.36 kg of recycled fibre: 136.36 kg more.

At 18.97% the yarn clears the 5% minimum for a Materials Matter transaction certificate, but a product made entirely from it falls short of the 20% recycled-cotton label threshold, so it cannot carry a consumer label. Under GRS the same yarn could not have gone on a GRS transaction certificate at all. Open the example with these inputs, then replace them with your own waste figures, recorded separately for each stream.

Transaction certificates: per shipment, with limits on bundling

A transaction certificate (TC) records a sale of certified goods from one seller to one buyer, shipment by shipment. It is tied to shipments, not to a calendar period. Under the Policy for Scope and Transaction Certificates (TE-TXL-POL-203 V4.0, section 4), a certification body may put several shipments on one TC only when:

• every shipment leaves the same seller location and goes to the same buyer;
• the TC carries no more than 50 shipments and no more than 100 product lines; and
• no more than 90 calendar days separate the first shipment from the last.

The certification body must issue the TC when a complete and valid application arrives within 180 days of the earliest shipment, and it has 14 days to do so; later applications are accepted only in listed cases, most of them capped at 365 days. Under ASR-104 V3.1, which this policy replaces, one TC could carry up to 100 shipments, and the standard window for applying was 90 days.

A transaction certificate issued under the new policy shows your buyer:

• the geographic origin of the certified raw material, by country and, where Textile Exchange requires it, state or province, with the weight from each origin;
• the Textile Exchange IDs (TE-IDs) and process codes of every facility that held the goods, in order;
• the yarn count for yarn, and the gsm and construction for fabric.

Two procedural traps. A buyer or trader that is not certified needs a TE-ID, or the application is incomplete. And Materials Matter cannot be added to a scope certificate issued under the old ASR-103, nor a Materials Matter TC issued under ASR-104: your scope certificate has to be reissued under the new policy first. The certification body can do that mid-term and keep the expiry date.

Your GRS and RCS stock, inputs and labels

• GRS inputs keep working, with a transition claim. From 31 December 2026, GRS-certified material can be accepted as an input to Materials Matter products, and every claim made downstream of it must use a transition claim option. GRS stock you still hold when your Materials Matter scope is issued can be sold the same way. The options are set out in Textile Exchange’s claims transition guide (TE-MM-GUI-305).
• RCS material never becomes Materials Matter. RCS-certified inputs are not eligible for Materials Matter products and must be kept physically separate from them. RCS stock has to be sold and shipped while the RCS scope is still valid, or it loses its certified status.
• Both scopes, side by side, until 31 March 2029. A Tier 1–3 site may hold GRS or RCS alongside Materials Matter, even after a recertification that falls after 31 December 2027. On 31 March 2029 the remaining GRS and RCS scopes are withdrawn.
• The last GRS and RCS transaction certificates. Applications must be complete by 31 March 2029, even where the TC policy would otherwise allow longer, and none are issued after 14 April 2029. Leave time for an application that comes back incomplete.
• Labels. GRS and RCS labels already printed or attached may be used until the stock runs out. From the day your GRS or RCS scope ends, approved templates cannot be used to print new ones, and online claims must move to Materials Matter, with the new claims submitted for approval before 30 June 2029.

Source: the Transition Policy, sections 1.2 to 1.6.

Your fibre supplier’s audit gets heavier

Most of the new requirements land on the recycler that sells you fibre or filament, which must be certified to the Materials Matter Standard and the CCS. Textile Exchange’s criteria for recycled materials cover human rights due diligence, working practices, health and safety, pay and working hours, child and forced labour, an environmental management system, chemical management, waste, water and effluent, air emissions and energy. Among the chemical criteria: chemicals used for certified material may not contain substances on the REACH Authorisation List (Annex XIV); recycled pellets, chips, filament or fibre are tested for restricted substances before further processing; and recycled polyester and man-made cellulosic producers must apply the ZDHC fibre guidelines. Textile Exchange expects RCS-certified recyclers to face a significant increase in criteria, and recyclers must use the revised Reclaimed Material Declaration Form from 31 December 2026.

Ask each fibre and filament supplier now when its Materials Matter audit is planned. Until it holds a Materials Matter scope certificate, its GRS material reaches you under the transition claim, and its RCS material cannot become Materials Matter at all.

What your buyer will ask for

Textile Exchange’s guidance to brands tells them to start this conversation with their certified suppliers during 2026. Expect to be asked for:

• a scope certificate issued under the new policy, with Materials Matter on it, from a certification body licensed for the new system. Certification bodies had to reapply to Textile Exchange by 1 July 2026, and acceptance was not automatic, even to keep the CCS;
• transaction certificates for each sale, showing the Materials Matter claims category, the composition, the origin of the recycled feedstock and the facilities that handled the goods;
• whether your inputs are Materials Matter Certified or GRS under a transition claim, because the brand’s own label wording depends on it;
• enough certified content for the brand’s label: 30% of the final product or component, or 20% where recycled cotton or recycled man-made cellulosic fibre is the only certified material;
• proof that RCS material is kept apart from Materials Matter material;
• evidence on labour, environment and chemicals at your own site, which the new certificate does not give them unless you add the optional modules.

Tools and records

• Recycled content through differential process loss (free): one blending stage, with separate losses for recycled and virgin fibre, and the recycled input a target content needs.
• Certified content mass balance and claim reconciliation (professional): carries a claim back through a multi-stage chain, compares it with the fibre bought under transaction certificates, and flags any stage outside a certified scope.
• Standard records on this site: GRS, RCS, CCS and the Materials Matter Standard.

How this page is kept

Last verified: 3 October 2026. Every date and threshold on this page was read from Textile Exchange’s own published documents, linked where each is used: the Materials Matter Transition, Scope and Eligibility, and Claims and Labelling policies; the standard’s criteria for recycled materials; the Policy for Scope and Transaction Certificates and its standard-specific details; GRS 5.0, RCS 3.0, the Content Claim Standard 3.1 and its VR2 policy; and the Supply Chain Taxonomy. Textile Exchange’s claims transition guide (TE-MM-GUI-305), which sets the wording of transition claims, was not reviewed for this page. The worked example uses this site’s calculator with invented figures. This page describes Textile Exchange’s documents as published; it is not certification advice for a particular site, product or shipment, and your certification body’s reading of them prevails. Corrections are welcome through the contact page.