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OCS Organic Content Standard

Tracks organically grown material through the supply chain and verifies how much of it is present. A voluntary certification standard, not a test method. Compliance is demonstrated by third-party audit of a site and by transaction certificates following the material through the chain, rather than by a laboratory result on a specimen.

Number

OCS

Edition

OCS 3.0

Status

active

Equivalents

Body	Number	Equivalence	Deviation
GOTS	GOTS	NEQ	Both cover organic fibre through the supply chain and they are not interchangeable. This one verifies how much certified organic material is present and where it went; GOTS additionally governs the processing chemistry, the environmental management of each site and the labour conditions. A specification asking for "organic certification" usually means one of these two specifically.

What this standard is for

What to watch for

It does not certify the farming. The organic status of the crop comes from a separate organic certification, and this standard takes that as its input; a product carrying it is evidence of custody and content, not of how the fibre was grown.

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Metadata only — purchase the standard from the issuing body.