OEKO-TEX® STeP is an independent certification system for brands, retailers and manufacturers from the textile and leather industry. Certification is suitable for production facilities at all processing stages who want to communicate their environmental measures externally in a credible and transparent way. All textile companies can be certified, for example, fibre manufacturers, spinning mills, weaving mills, embroiderers, knitwear companies, finishing companies, manufacturers of ready-made clothes, foam and mattress manufacturers and technology logistics centres. In the leather industry, all processes can be certified, from the beamhouse to the tannery to the manufacturer of ready-made clothes.
In principle, any production facility in the textile and leather industry can have its production and working conditions certified in accordance with STeP. The prerequisite for STeP certification is compliance with specific minimum requirements in the six STeP modules.
The basis for STeP certification is compliance with defined minimum requirements, as shown in STeP Standard Annex 10. We inform you immediately if the OEKO-TEX® testing institute identifies that certification is not possible due to non-compliance with one or more minimum requirements.
Unlike other certification systems, STeP enables an integrated view of production conditions from sustainable perspectives. Our independent OEKO-TEX® institutes carry out the analysis and scoring in 6 modules:
Level 1 = Compliance with the entry level specifications
Level 2 = Good implementation with further optimisation potential
Level 3 = Ideal implementation in the sense of Best Practice examples
Qualified OEKO-TEX® auditors evaluate the six modules using this scoring system. The final scoring value for a production facility is calculated as the average of all individual module results.
During the 3-year term of the certificate, your OEKO-TEX® institute routinely checks for compliance with the required criteria at the production facilities and analyses any progress made. This takes place during conformity audits and unannounced audits.