Recycled Claim Standard (RCS)

RCS, also administered by Textile Exchange, verifies recycled content through the same chain-of-custody tracking GRS uses, splitting into RCS 100 for material that's 95% or more recycled and RCS Blended for anything above 5%. What it drops from GRS is the added layer of environmental processing rules and social-compliance auditing — RCS answers how much recycled material is really in a product and stops there.

Buyers run into RCS on private-label and smaller-run blanks, where a factory can prove its recycled percentage but hasn't gone through the wastewater and labor audits GRS demands. It's a legitimate, third-party-verified claim, just narrower in scope — similar to how OCS is the lighter counterpart to GOTS on the organic side of the aisle.

Suppliers often start with RCS because the content-tracking audit is faster and cheaper to pass, then work toward GRS once their dye house and social-compliance systems catch up. If recycled content is a customer's only concern, RCS is sufficient proof; if they're also asking about chemical discharge or factory labor conditions, the GRS certificate is the one to request instead.

Eco-minded buyers frequently assume RCS and GRS are interchangeable names for the same certification. They're not — RCS certifies the number printed on the label, while GRS certifies that number plus how the material was processed and who made it. Blurring the two on a spec sheet is an easy way to overpromise.