#Sustainability

2019-12-19

TenCate protective fabrics fire service offering now certified to standard 100 by OEKO-TEX®

TenCate Protective Fabrics remains committed to protecting and empowering its end-users in every aspect of life. That's why we're proud to announce that the TenCate Protective Fabrics family of products for the Fire Service market is now OEKO-TEX® certified.

Certification by OEKO-TEX® to the STANDARD 100 has been completed for TenCate Protective Fabrics' outer shells and thermal liners.

In addition, TenCate Protective Fabrics' revolutionary Tecasafe® Plus, available in both woven and knit fabrics, are OEKO-TEX® certified. Tecasafe® Plus is one of TenCate's best-performing fabrics for FR Stationwear and serves thousands of wearers in the Fire Service.

As of November 2019, TenCate Protective Fabrics has been using products and manufacturing processes that ensure these fabrics meet the OEKO-TEX® Standard 100.

Since 1992, OEKO-TEX® has made it their mission to test textiles for harmful substances in order to offer consumers reliable assistance in the purchase of textile materials of all types. OEKO-TEX® evaluates and tests products from both private and public companies against a wide collection of the world's most rigorous safety standards. Textiles that meet those standards are given a special status for customer confidence and high product safety.

For more information about OEKO-TEX®, please visit https://www.oeko-tex.com/en/.

As the conversation around sustainability and the general health and well-being of individual wearers continues across the world, TenCate Protective Fabrics offers the trusted confidence of all-around protection, quality, and material performance that end-users everywhere have known for decades. As this tradition continues, we remain committed to our new brand promise and the true nature of the life-saving products we design: Made For Life.

OEKO-TEX® chooses TextileGenesis to advance digital traceability for organic cotton

OEKO-TEX® today announced a full collaboration with TextileGenesis, a Lectra company, to digitally trace and authenticate organic cotton, strengthening fraud prevention across the supply chain. This announcement follows a successful pilot and brings together OEKO-TEX®’s certification expertise and closed testing system with TextileGenesis’ digital traceability platform to deliver a secure, end-to-end solution for managing certified organic cotton flows.

OEKO-TEX® - New regulations 2025

Fostering trust within the textile and leather industry remains the mission of OEKO-TEX®. Since trust relies on consistently high standards, the OEKO-TEX® Association has released the updated testing criteria, limit values and guidelines for its certifications, based on the latest scientific research and legal developments.

OEKO-TEX® Annual Report 2023/2024 mentions 50,000+ valid certifications

The international OEKO-TEX® association has continued to demonstrate positive business growth, highlighting the critical role of close collaboration and shared commitment in accelerating sustainable change. More than 35,000 textile and leather companies depend on the certificates and product labels issued by OEKO-TEX®’s independent testing institutes. OEKO-TEX® issued more than 50,000 certificates and labels between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024 – an increase of 22% over the previous financial year.

Updated supply chain taxonomy advances apparel alignment

The apparel alliance (Apparel Impact Institute, Cascale, Textile Exchange, and ZDHC Foundation) today announced the launch of Version 2 of the Supply Chain Taxonomy, an updated harmonized framework designed to improve consistency, transparency, and collaboration across the textile, clothing, leather, and footwear (TCLF) sectors of the broader apparel industry.

Networking Day 2026: Industry stakeholders unite around textile recycling

In 2026, the Industry Research Group (IRG) Polymer Recycling once again brought together some of the key stakeholders in textile recycling for its annual Networking Day. This year, the event took place at EREMA’s premises in Ansfelden, Austria. It brought together key players from across the textile recycling value chain for a day of structured exchange and in-depth discussions.

The new RDJ 7/3 defines the design footprint of modern athletic shoes

Stylish, functional, and efficient to produce – spacer fabrics are the all-arounders among textile materials. These versatile fabrics are particularly in demand in the sports and casual footwear sector, as they combine comfort, breathability, and design freedom. At the same time, this industry is trend-driven, dynamic, and price-sensitive like few others. Innovations are therefore a decisive factor for success. With the RDJ 7/3, KARL MAYER offers a solution specifically tailored to these requirements. The particular strength of the new double raschel machine: its exceptional flexibility, thanks to its three jacquard bars.

Smart textiles reversibly change shape in an energy-efficient manner in response to ambient temperature

Self-actuating textile structures are used in a wide range of applications, such as medical technology, automation, architecture, agriculture, and the apparel industry. An example is the use of shading nets in greenhouses, which can be deployed and retracted depending on the sunlight intensity. The German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research Denkendorf (DITF) are developing textiles based on shape-memory polymers with reversibly controllable geometry.