Ecological Textiles

Production locations

• Türkiye (organic cotton: ginning, spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing)
• The Netherlands (warehouse, local wool, woad cultivation)
• Belgium (wool washing)
• Germany (wool spinning and weaving)
• European Union (hemp and linen cultivation and weaving, mainly France, Belgium and the Netherlands)
• France (natural indigo expertise)
• Hungary, Romania and other European countries (bast fibre processing, according to the brand)

Working conditions & living wages

Ecological Textiles is a GOTS-certified company, and all of its cotton fabrics carry GOTS certification. The GOTS standard includes social criteria based on the key ILO conventions: no child or forced labour, fair wages, safe working conditions, fire prevention training and grievance systems throughout the production chain.

The brand maintains close working relationships with its suppliers. In its 2025 manifesto, the founders describe visiting cotton farmers and ginning factories in the Aegean region of Türkiye in person, and working directly with weaving mills, knitting mills, dyers and even seed breeders across Europe. The company deliberately avoids sourcing cotton from regions associated with human rights violations, such as Xinjiang in China.

A large share of wool and hemp processing takes place within the EU, where labour regulations are stricter. COSH! can therefore assume these production steps happen under fair conditions.

Materials

• Organic cotton (GOTS certified): grown in the Aegean region of Türkiye without synthetic pesticides or GMO seeds, which are banned by Turkish law. Weeds are removed mechanically or by hand, and natural fertilisation supports soil restoration.
• Hemp (European): According to the brand, hemp grows without irrigation, herbicides or insecticides, stores CO2, supports biodiversity and can even clean contaminated soils. The fabrics are made in the EU from European hemp.
• Linen (mostly organic and GOTS certified): made from flax grown mainly in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. The plant needs no extra irrigation and little to no chemical treatment. Non-certified linen is finished with water-based, REACH-compliant dyes and oxygen-based bleaches.
• Wool (partly organic and GOTS certified): including local wool from Campine Heath sheep that graze Dutch nature reserves as part of landscape management.
• Silk (GOTS-certified qualities available): organic silk relates to organic mulberry cultivation and certified processing.
• Tencel (lyocell): made from eucalyptus wood which, according to producer Lenzing, comes from FSC-managed forests and is processed in a nearly closed-loop system that recovers and reuses solvents.
• Natural dyes: the brand produces plant-dyed fabrics with madder, weld and woad, and even grows its own woad in the Netherlands for natural indigo.

The brand consciously excludes recycled polyester from its collection because polyester clothing releases microplastics that harm biodiversity.

Packaging

Orders are shipped from the brand’s own warehouse in Roermond as single rolls, in boxes or on pallets. Ecological Textiles does not disclose which packaging materials are used.

Water usage

The brand states that hemp and flax normally grow on rainfall alone, without extra irrigation. Its organic cotton comes from Aegean farms where, according to the brand, water management has improved considerably. GOTS certification also restricts water pollution, as it prohibits hazardous chemicals and requires assessment of all dyes and auxiliaries used in processing.

Circular design

Ecological Textiles works almost exclusively with natural, potentially biodegradable fibres. According to the brand, hemp, linen and wool are fully biodegradable, and it describes wool as the world’s most recycled apparel fibre.

The collection includes recycled cotton yarns made from pre-consumer and post-consumer waste, as well as yarns combining recycled hemp with organic cotton.

The brand also fights waste in its own operations: short dead stock pieces of linen and Tencel from the end of a roll, sometimes with small flaws, are sold at a discount instead of being discarded. There is no take-back service for used textiles.

Distance & complexity of the supply chain

• Ecological Textiles’ HQ and warehouse are located in Roermond, the Netherlands.
• Organic cotton is grown and processed in the same Turkish region, limiting the distance between field and factory.
• Local wool travels a maximum of around 700 kilometres from Dutch sheep to washing in Belgium and spinning and weaving in Germany.
• Hemp and linen fabrics are made in the EU from European fibres.
• Some merino wool comes from further afield: Australia, New Zealand and Argentina.

Transportation

• Supply chain: the brand chose Türkiye partly because its proximity allows transport by truck, reducing the footprint compared to overseas cotton origins.
• E‑commerce: orders are measured, packed and shipped daily from the brand’s own warehouse, normally with standard postal services.

• Animal-derived materials: wool (sheep, including organic and local Dutch wool) and silk.
• Wool is sourced from the Netherlands, Germany-based spinners’ supply (Australia, New Zealand, Argentina) and organic farms.

Organic wool in the collection guarantees attention to animal welfare: outdoor access, organic feed, no preventive chemical treatments and a ban on mulesing. The brand notes that mulesing is not practised in Argentina, and that many non-certified farms provide mulesing-free declarations. Its local Campine Heath sheep graze freely in nature reserves. Conventional silk production kills the pupae before the filaments are unwound. The brand transparently explains this on its website and describes peace silk as an alternative, though the range remains very small.

Product design

Ecological Textiles is a wholesale brand for professionals: designers, fashion labels and interior makers. Reproducibility and guaranteed high quality are core values, so collections can be rebuilt on the same fabric time and again.

The brand supports small and starting labels by offering quantities from just one metre and a sample service, which helps prevent overproduction. Custom fabrics are made to order with minimum quantities of 100 to 500 metres, and custom digital printing is possible. Strong, long-lasting fibres such as hemp, linen and wool naturally support durable product design.

Ecological Textiles publishes extensive information about its materials, origins and certifications on its product and information pages. Its GOTS certificate is publicly available, and the brand encourages customers to verify certification through the public GOTS database rather than trusting self-claims.

For its 20^th anniversary in 2025, the brand published a manifesto that openly discusses its sourcing choices, the farmers and processors it works with, and even the limitations of its own assortment, such as why its local wool and hemp fabrics are not organically certified. The origin of some materials, such as imported merino wool used by partner spinning mills, is less detailed.