Recycled is one of the easiest claims to make and one of the hardest to prove. The Global Recycled Standard is how a brand turns claimed into verified: an independent certification that follows the recycled material through every step of the supply chain, not just a logo on a hang tag.
This guide explains what GRS certifies, the 20% and 50% content rules, how it differs from the RCS, how its chain of custody works, and how a brand uses it to back a recycled claim as part of circular fashion.
What is the Global Recycled Standard?
The Global Recycled Standard (GRS) is an international, voluntary certification that verifies the recycled content of a product and tracks it through the entire supply chain, from the recycling stage to the final seller. It is owned by the non-profit Textile Exchange, and it goes beyond content to also cover social, environmental and chemical requirements.
It was developed by Control Union in 2008 and transferred to Textile Exchange in 2011; the current version is GRS 4.0, released in 2017, though it is now being folded into a new unified standard, covered below. Although it is best known in textiles, it can certify any product made with recycled content, and every stage of production, spinning, weaving, dyeing and sewing, has to be certified for the final product to carry the claim.
Why does GRS matter for brands?
Recycled has become a headline sustainability claim, and regulators and retailers have noticed. GRS matters because it turns a marketing word into an auditable fact, at exactly the moment when unproven claims are becoming a liability.
- Claims enforcement: regulators are tightening the rules on vague green claims, and certified recycled content is far easier to defend than a supplier's say-so.
- Retailer and marketplace requirements: many buyers and platforms now ask for GRS or RCS certification before they will list a product as recycled.
- Supply-chain credibility: GRS gives a brand documented proof it can show buyers, auditors and customers, rather than a claim that rests on trust.
- A recognized benchmark: because GRS is a single, widely accepted standard, it aligns a brand with how the rest of the industry defines recycled.
Put simply, recycled without proof is now a risk, and GRS is the most established way to supply that proof. For a brand building a recycled range, it is becoming less a nice-to-have and more the cost of making the claim at all.
The 20% and 50% content rules
GRS has two thresholds, and confusing them is a common mistake. A product needs at least 20% recycled content to be GRS certified, but at least 50% recycled content to use the GRS logo on consumer-facing packaging.
- 20% to certify: any product with 20% or more certified recycled content can be GRS certified and used as a business-to-business claim; between 20% and 50%, it is labelled GRS (No Label).
- 50% to display the logo: to put the GRS logo on-pack, in front of consumers, the product must contain at least 50% recycled content.
- It counts both waste types: GRS accepts both pre-consumer material (factory offcuts and scrap) and post-consumer material (used products) toward the recycled percentage.
The practical effect is a two-tier system. A supplier and a brand can trade GRS-certified fabric at 20% recycled content and rely on it in business-to-business documents; the consumer-facing logo, and the marketing power that comes with it, is reserved for products that are at least half recycled.
GRS vs RCS: what is the difference?
GRS and the Recycled Claim Standard (RCS) come from the same body and share a chain of custody, but GRS is the stricter of the two. The RCS verifies recycled content and nothing else; GRS adds social, environmental and chemical requirements on top.
- RCS (Recycled Claim Standard): tracks recycled content and its chain of custody only, from as little as 5% recycled input; it makes no demands on how the product is processed.
- GRS (Global Recycled Standard): covers the same content and chain of custody, then adds requirements for labor conditions, wastewater and environmental management, and restricted chemicals.
- Which to use: RCS is the lighter, content-only claim; GRS is the higher-credibility, full-product claim, so many brands start with RCS and move to GRS. Both sit on the Content Claim Standard chain-of-custody foundation.
The gap between them is really about ambition. RCS answers one question, how much of this is recycled. GRS answers that and then asks whether the recycling was done responsibly, which is why a GRS label carries more weight with buyers who care about the how, not only the what.
How the GRS chain of custody works
GRS is only as strong as its paper trail. It uses a transaction-based chain of custody, so recycled material can be followed and audited at every handover, not just claimed at the end.
- Scope Certificate (SC): certifies that a specific site or company is GRS certified and lists what it is allowed to handle; it proves the facility passed its audit.
- Transaction Certificate (TC): documents each shipment of certified material between certified companies, with batch numbers, weights and product descriptions, issued by an accredited certification body.
- It has to be unbroken: every stage from the recycler to the last business-to-business seller must be certified; if the chain breaks at any point, the recycled claim cannot be carried through to the finished product.
This chain of custody is built on Textile Exchange's Content Claim Standard, the common traceability backbone under all its standards. It is also time-limited: a scope certificate is typically valid for one year and must be renewed through an annual audit, so a GRS claim is only valid while the certificates behind it are current. An expired scope certificate means an expired claim.
GRS is moving to the Materials Matter Standard
One more thing a brand should know: GRS as described here is being superseded. Textile Exchange is consolidating GRS, RCS and its other material standards into a single unified framework, the Materials Matter Standard (MMS).
- The timeline: the MMS criteria were published in December 2025; certification becomes available from 31 December 2026 and mandatory from 31 December 2027, after which GRS is phased out.
- What carries over: GRS is being absorbed rather than abandoned: its core strengths, recycled-content verification, chain of custody, and social, environmental and chemical safeguards, are built into the MMS at the raw-material tier.
- What it means now: existing GRS and RCS certificates stay valid through the transition, so a current GRS claim still holds; but a brand planning ahead should track the MMS shift rather than treat GRS 4.0 as permanent.
How brands use GRS (and verify it)
For a brand, GRS is both a claim it can make and a claim it has to check when a supplier makes it. Getting either wrong is a greenwashing risk.
- Substantiate your own claim: if you market a product as recycled, GRS certification and the matching transaction certificate are what stand behind the claim if a regulator or customer asks, which the Green Claims rules increasingly demand.
- Verify a supplier's claim: do not take GRS on trust; check the supplier's valid scope certificate, ask for the transaction certificate covering your order, and cross-check it against Textile Exchange's public database.
- Know what it does not prove: GRS confirms recycled content, chain of custody and responsible processing; it does not by itself prove a lower carbon footprint or overall sustainability, so it is one input to sustainable sourcing, not the whole answer.
Used well, GRS is less a badge than a discipline: it forces a brand to know where its recycled material actually comes from and how it was processed. That knowledge, not the logo alone, is what stands up when a claim is challenged by a regulator, a retailer or a sharp-eyed customer, and it is what separates a real recycled programme from a hopeful label.
GRS is one of a growing stack of certifications and claims rules a brand has to track, alongside organic, chemical and labelling standards. Apshan structures that regulatory and sourcing knowledge, cited to source, so a recycled claim is backed, not assumed. Request access or see the plans and pricing.