Zurich, 23 October 2018

New Virtual Lab Tour and Panel Discussion “Little label – Big impact! How to cre-ate consumer trust with an ecolabel.” at Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics Autumn 2018

TESTEX at Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics Autumn 2018

With 78’000 visitors from 110 countries, Intertextile remains the industry’s leading business platform. TESTEX had an impressive presence in the All About Sustainability Zone with its OEKO-TEX® Group Pavil-ion. This comprised 9 OEKO-TEX® certified custom-ers and sustainability partner the ZDHC Foundation, all paving the way towards more sustainability in textile manufacturing. With a dedicated zone to showcase a range of OEKO-TEX® certified garments including STANDARD 100, MADE IN GREEN and STeP, the pavilion attracted more visitors than ever.

New Virtual Lab Tour

The highlight of the TESTEX stand this year was a brand new feature: a virtual tour of the Zurich la-boratories complete with VR headset and touch screen. Each user can navigate their way through the labs either by touching the screen or by wearing the VR headset. Each piece of equipment has a but-ton which when pressed activates either a pop-up video of it in action or a description of its functions. The technology was well received by customers, and they are looking forward to next year’s release.

Panel Discussion “Little label – Big impact! How to create consumer trust with an ecolabel.”

The greatest insight into how the industry is progressing towards a more sustainable and socially esponsible future came from TESTEX’s panel discussion “Little label – Big impact! How to create consumer trust with an ecolabel.” Moderated by TESTEX, the panel list included representatives from ZDHC, The Coalition for Sustainable Develop- ment of Viscose (CV), DVC Trading, Sateri and LOFTEX, as well as an interpreter to ensure that the audience of around 60 people didn’t get lost in translation between Chinese and English! In addition, almost 6000 viewers watched via live-stream.

The discussion focused on whether one ecolabel can make a big impact by meeting both consumer and industry demands as well as making a real difference to the environment. The key takeaways from the panel discussion included how important it is to have an effective auditing process for ecolabels to ensure they are credible for consumers, and the need for suppliers, associations and certification bodies to work much more closely together to achieve industry goals such as ZDHC’s Roadmap to Zero and Greenpeace’s Detox campaign. STeP, MADE IN GREEN and DETOX TO ZERO by OEKO-TEX® are leading the way towards achieving these ambitious goals.

We would like to thank all of the OEKO-TEX® pavilion members for their support and sustainability achievements: Bestrims Ltd, Changshu Xundayi Knitting Textile Co, Huafon Microfibre Col, Jiangyin Hanxin Textile Co, Penfabric Sdn Bhd, Sakura Thread Co, Sateri, Shaoxing Jinyu Textile New Technology Co, Wuxi Zhenxin Special Textile & Garments Co, ZDHC Foundation