Labels and hallmarks for sustainable hotel linen

Your Future. Our GreenDeal

In a previous blog, we introduced you to our GreenDeal. This is yet another way in which we take our reponsibility for a more sustainable world. Transparency is very important, but the content is just as vital. That is why we go into hallmarks and requirements we impose on our partners in the textile chain in this blog.

Through the platform blycolin.greendeal.network we show you what we do with our partner Beirholm for a more sustainable future with more sustainable textile. Also with our other partners, we work towards this goal. For instance with Dibella and the Chetna Project.

Choosing a label or hallmark is a logical step towards more sustainability.The textile Beirholm will supply to us, is minimally produced cotton in conformity to the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) standards.Those standards entail, for instance, training the farmers how to efficiently handle water or how to reduce the use of chemicals. Besides BCI cotton, Blycolin also has linen with other labels or hallmarks in its collection, such as organic cotton with the GOTS label, Fairtrade certified cotton or the rather radical Oeko-Tex Made in Green.

Why all these sustainability labels?

A fair question. Why can’t sustainable hotel linen be covered by one label? Simply put: many labels and quality marks have a certain focus. For example, fair working conditions or reduced CO2 emissions. Other labels vary per country, or per production phase. Of course, it is important to achieve and continue to achieve sustainable improvement in every respect. That is why we work with multiple labels and hallmarks, just like we work with multiple partners. Sustainability requires action across the board. The GreenDeal is an impetus for this.

We want to become sustainable across the board and in our entire chain. Several hallmarks are appropriate for this. Both as proof and as a mirror for ourselves. We will be able to measure our progress accurately against them. On the platform of GreenDeal we published a handy overview with which you can easily compare the different labels.

We and our suppliers are not the only parties to bring together labels and hallmarks and use them alongside each other to ensure sustainability and fairness across the board. For example, the German government has taken the initiative to create the Grüne Knopf. This is an umbrella label that not only imposes strict conditions on both the organisation and the product, but can also be obtained automatically through the possession of other labels and hallmarks.

A critical look

An important issue in Blycolin’s purchasing policy is therefore to look critically at the range of labels and to always go a step further in making the products in the collection more sustainable. In other words, we do not simply assume that what is sustainable now will be so in the future. We continue to look critically at where there is still room for improvement. To that end, we continue to innovate, but also to seek cooperation with partners in the chain.

Labels and hallmarks are a means to sustainability and a way to prove it, but not the goal itself. The goal is to reduce the impact of the production and washing of textiles to a level that is sustainable in the long term. That goal is clear and the first steps towards it have been taken. But we will only achieve this goal if we, together with all our partners in the entire chain, keep taking steps forward and do not stand still.