What Is Ecocert Certification & Is It Reliable?

That question is critical given the amount of controversy over counterfeit organic products. Essentially, lax inspections are leading to fake organic certificates, especially under the Ecocert organic standard.

So what is Ecocert certification exactly and can we trust it?

We dove into the latest news and research to debunk the label and decide whether we think the organic certification really holds up.

Founded nearly thirty years ago, Ecocert is one of the most reputed organic certification bodies globally, and the main organics certifier in France where they certify 70% of the organic food and agriculture. Beyond that, they certify 30% of all global organic products in over 80 countries, guided by the slogan, “Act for a more sustainable world”.

Except it was thrust into the limelight for certifying fraudulent “organic cotton” in India, but before that, no one really thought to ask hard questions about this long-time “reliable” certification.

As such, thorough research into the label is slim. The organization is incredibly opaque, with everything from their process, methods, data, and findings being kept incredibly under wraps. This lack of transparency is exactly one of the main causes for concern for critics and watchdogs of the Ecocert certification.

In a piece on cosmetics greenwashing, Phillip Picardi writes, “In the European Union, Ecocert has emerged as the USDA counterpart, and is largely regarded in the industry as a more sophisticated approach to cosmetics certification. However, it is difficult to find out why—the body is nowhere near as transparent about its process or what its label means on its website.”

It’s true. Information online about Ecocert standards seems to only regurgitate the same claims to its sophistication and greatness, without any real hard science, evidence, or transparent data to back them.

Ecocert products predominantly consist of food, beauty ingredients, and raw materials for textiles, ensuring they haven’t been grown with use of GMOs, chemical pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.

Here’s where things get confusing. Ecocert isn’t exactly an independent certification of organic products. It’s actually a collaborative agency that works with other certifying agencies and services depending on the products being certified, so Ecocert products may not bear its name at all.

Organic Cosmetics Via COSMOS

The COSMOS label specifically approves organic and natural cosmetics, perfumes, and detergents, which boasts over 32,000 products from over 70 countries.

Ecocert is one of five key certifiers for COSMOS, rather than taking ownership of the label itself. To gain the Ecocert COSMOS Natural label, a product formula must be absent:

• GMOs
• Parabens, phenoxyethanol, and other petrochemicals (AKA ingredients to avoid in skincare)
• Nanoparticles
• Silicone
• PEG
• Synthetic perfumes and dyes
• Animal-derived ingredients (unless naturally produced, like milk, honey, etc.)
• Animal cruelty

They must also have recyclable packaging, respect of biodiversity, responsible use of natural and renewable resources, and processing that respects the environment and human health. The process covers areas such as origin and processing, composition of total product, storage, packaging, labeling, and environmental management

There are two divisions under the Ecocert COSMOS label: organic and natural.

To gain Ecocert COSMOS natural certification, “All the ingredients are from natural origin except a restrictive approved ingredients list (including preservatives) authorized in small quantities.” Although in reality, that’s misleading, as the actual standards paint a different distinction between the two:

• Natural: Over 50% of ingredients are of plant origin, with 5% or more being organic.
• Organic: Over 95% of ingredients are of plant origin, with 10% or more being organic in rinse-off products (like Ecocert shampoo), or 20% in all others.

It seems Ecocert organic makeup isn’t very organic at all. The vagueness of Ecocert ingredients and labeling requirements for these terms inevitably allows for all kinds of creative misinterpretation of its rules to accommodate clients who mislabel products.

In fact, Dr. Bronner’s (who are lauded as much as organic industry giants as industry advocates) tried to sue for their egregious labeling allowances, claiming they had not been complying with the mandates of the FDA.

Mysteriously, the case vanished from US courts. All we know is that Dr Bronner’s lost and Ecocert proclaimed their integrity.

Organic Textiles Via GOTS

The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) label is the premier label in organic fashion, applying to all fibers, clothes, and fabrics except leather. It’s awarded by one of an international network of 18 different certifying bodies and inspection agencies, Ecocert being one of them.

Their standards mean the certificate should indicate across the whole supply chain:

• 95% minimum of organic fibers and 5% maximum synthetic ones
• Environmentally friendly production
• Fair working conditions
• No hazardous inputs (heavy metals, aromatic solvents, etc).
• “Promotion of the use of fibres from organic agriculture”

We would criticize the non-specific and contradictory language between these, as “promotion of” is not equivalent to enforcement of their supposed 95% organic fiber minimum.

Organic Textiles Via OCS

The Organic Content Standard (OCS) is actually a creation of the sustainable textile collaboration program Textile Exchange, but like GOTS, Ecocert is one of several bodies that conducts audits to award the certification.

Per their standards, complete supply chain traceability, stakeholder’s commitment, and again, “promotion of the use” of organic practices are needed. The OCS100 tier requires 95% minimum certified organic fiber.

With both OCS and GOTS, it’s difficult to tell if Ecocert was the certifying agency behind the label. While some brands may disclose this information, it’s rare even among the most other transparent brands.

Fair Trade Products Via Ecocert Fair For Life

Fair For Life was originally created in 2006 by Swiss Bio-Foundation. It was taken over by Ecocert in 2014 and is available for a product when 80% of its raw materials come from Fair Trade sources.

It currently certifies more than 700 companies, but with limited data on the standards and certification requirements, whether this label is merely lip service to satisfy a growing consumer demand for more ethical products or if it truly helps those supposed 235,000 workers along the supply chain is really yet to be seen.

There are five main steps in an Ecocert certificate check:

1. A company makes a request to become certified.
2. A contract is made.
3. An initial on-site audit of the business is done.
4. Officers then review the report created to determine if the body should be accredited.
5. If the company passes, they receive their certificate.

Notice the information is vague. While they outline more limited parameters under the COSMOS certification, they offer no such Ecocert certification list for any non-cosmetics—like textiles, which is a HUGE segment of their workings.

Ecocert claims, “It’s a rigorous process that consists of an independent and impartial certification body assessing the conformity of a product, service or system with environmental and social requirements specified in a standard. At the end of the certification process, Ecocert issues a decision and when positive, delivers a written assurance called a certificate.”

They say that a company or product’s full supply chain is audited—from raw materials to finished product—and that they make at least one annual on-site inspection, along with additional surprise audits throughout the year. Exactly how many isn’t clear.

Samples are reportedly also sometimes taken for laboratory analysis. After that, audit reports are verified by their teams to certify products are indeed organic.

But what is the actual criteria? What is the checklist? Where are the published data and findings?

The label claims their stamp “allows you to highlight your environmentally friendly and socially conscious practices, and to establish a bond of trust with your stakeholders.”

On paper, it sounds encouraging of practices like fair trade, sustainable development, preservation of green spaces, natural cosmetics, organic agricultural products, and plant based ingredients. But in a world ruled by profit over people and planet, organic business is big business.

Last year, the organic food and beverage sector surpassed $220 billion. The global organic cotton market last year was estimated at more than $635 million. Consumers are willing to pay a premium for organically-grown and processed items, meaning there’s a huge incentive for farmers, manufacturers, and brands alike to declare their products “certified organic”.

What’s more, these farms and businesses pay organizations to certify them. In other words, they aren’t players to be policed by Ecocert, but rather clients from whom the cert gets paid. No wonder the name is rife with criticisms, accusations, and controversies.

Fraudulent Organic Cotton

Organic cotton is widely regarded as THE fabric of sustainable fashion—but how much of it is actually originally grown?

Apparently, as little as one-half to four-fifths of it. In fact, there aren’t enough seeds in circulation to match the organic cotton market report! Essentially, customers and brands alike are assured of “organic” fibers, while the murky inspection agencies either fail to certify properly or line their pockets by intentionally lying about the veracity of the farming methods used.

Ecocert is one of the certifying agencies caught red-handed in this scandal and their credibility has been “destroyed” in some circles.

The EU no longer accepts organic certifications on raw cotton from India (note, not finished cotton, meaning a huge loophole) from the top companies responsible: Ecocert, Control Union, and OneCert. The latter fully lost its ability to certify for GOTS, but Ecocert certifies on.

Whlie India was the main focus of this scandal, fake certificates with the Ecocert name have also turned up extensively in China.

Fraudulent Organic Grains

A billion-dollar Turkish exporter was caught by the USDA for fake organic grains to be fed to livestock that were certified by yours truly. Ecocert only had to pay a $5000 USD fine.

Meanwhile, the following year, the same Turkish exporter showed up with double the amount of “organic” grains. That sort of increase is reason to sound the alarm, said John Bobbe of OFARM to Mother Jones for “Your Organic Meat Might Not Actually Be Organic”: “You don’t have organic production come up that fast.”

Fraudulent Organic Corn & Soybeans

In 2017, The Washington Post investigated the massive quantities of counterfeit organic agricultural products (namely corn and soybean) flooding the US market.

USDA officials claimed their system to protect against fraud was “robust”; however, this was evidently not the case:

“Regardless of where organics come from, critics say, the system suffers from multiple weaknesses in enforcement: Farmers hire their own inspection companies; most inspections are announced days or weeks in advance and lack the element of surprise; and testing for pesticides is the exception rather than the rule. […] Ecocert, a French inspection agency, reported pesticide residue on about 1 percent of 360 samples from China in 2015—a level of cleanliness remarkable for any country, let alone China and its well-documented pollution.”

European Organic Food Scandal

As reported by the Brussels Times, there was an ethylene oxide and mold scandal in Europe in 2021, where organic agricultural products imported from India were guaranteed by Ecocert.

This highlights the conflict of interest built into the system, in that third party certifiers are paid by those they are certifying, meaning there is competition among the certifiers. If certifiers are too stringent or harsh, the farm or business looking to become certified will simply go to a more permissive certifying body.

Ecocert Vs USDA organic

USDA Organic mostly applies to food (though they do work with some raw textiles, too) in the US only, meaning its scope is far more limited, while Ecocert works globally across a wide range of products. But the two share many similarities—including in questions over their validity.

While rife with its own scandals over false organic farming certifications that lead many to inquire whether USDA is reliable, USDA is still overall a more transparent and seemingly reliable certification, if for no other reason than they actively respond to and attempt to amend accusations of wrongdoing.

In fact, in the organic cotton scandal mentioned earlier, the USDA responded by no longer accepting any organic cotton overseen by Indian-government inspection agencies, since India was the prime country under fire.

Ecocert Vs Cruelty-Free

In the EU, all beauty and cosmetic products must be cruelty-free, which means no animal testing of products. Because Ecocert is the primary certifier of France and much of the EU, the label equates to cruelty-free, but that’s entirely independent of the label itself.

As for the rest of the world, COSMOS claims one of its criteria to be “no animal cruelty”, but is unclear about how this is enforced or even defined. They also allow select animal-derived ingredients, so neither is Ecocert vegan. As such, an Ecocert certification should not be confused with a vegan and cruelty-free one, such as Leaping Bunny, PETA, Vegan Society, or Certified Vegan.

Ecocert Vs Other Organic Certs

• GOTS: Ecocert is merely an arm by which GOTS conducts the accreditation process.
• OCS: Also a parent certifier for which Ecocert provides services.
• Soil Association: One of the most reputed of all organics certs and in collaboration with the COSMOS label.
• Australian Certified Organic: Australia’s main organics cert and a leader of regenerative organic farming.
• Canada Organic: Dedicated to the promotion and protection of authentic organic goods in Canada, where watchdogs warn that a no mandatory testing clause is dangerous to the integrity of authentic organics.
• Bio (Germany): The most popular label in Germany, where organic farming was first popularized all the way back in the 1920s.
• EU Organic: The main EU label under which 95% of ingredients must be organically procuced and the remaining 5% are under strict rules.