If you wish to claim that your products or services are environmentally friendly, getting it officially certified would be a very good idea.
Advantages of getting green products certified
With growing environmental concerns globally, consumers are becoming conscious about how they treat their habitat. There is a huge drift of green consumerism, where consumers are serious about environment friendly products and services. Amidst other pollutants are the harmful chemicals that pretend to be impervious to environment. The prudent solution is identifying and endorsing chemicals through certifications that are safe to the environment. These certifications tend to forbid the toxic compounds that can cause environmental damage to the aquatic life. These certifications ensure no harmful compositions are present in these chemicals, promoting the usage of biodegradable products. If you wish to claim that your business, products or services are environmentally safe, getting it officially certified would be a very good idea.
Green business certification has many benefits.
1. Doing it the right way: In the efforts of feeling responsible for the environment and to reduce carbon footprints, many businesses get their products certified. This also aids in aligning their business goals to the values.
2. Savings: Through appropriate conservation measures for water and energy and reduction of waste, there will be saving of resources, directly reducing expenditure and increasing savings.
3. Business enhancement: an unidentified benefit that businesses gather is by identification for enhancements. They might be already doing great things with green practices, with a number of legitimate certifications. However, all businesses have to be on a lookout for methods to keep their business sustainable.
4. Cut above the rest: your business will be differentiated vis-à-vis other competitors due to your efforts of minimising environmental effects with necessary certifications of your products.
5. Genuine marketing: getting a certification for your products informs your customers that your products are tested for quality and you have taken genuine steps towards ensuring no harm is caused to the environment as a result.
6. A robust certification framework: to ensure that you have ticked all boxes and remained compliant as per the quality standards of your country and regulation requirement for providing sustainable, green products.
7. Build a strong community: with certified range of environmentally friendly products, your business can help raise a level of awareness amongst consumers to build a strong and sustainable community.
Wish to get your green product environmentally friendly certified
Getting a right certification could be quite a cumbersome process and need a high level of scrutiny. These certifications provide strict standards that products need to comply with, to be environmentally safe.
Please read the following to identify steps to get your products certified.
- Make your pick and choose the right certification. This is highly dependent on your demography and legislative requirements of your country, where products are intended to be marketed and sold;
- Examine all the requirements carefully as they need to meet proper standards. These standards include chemicals that can be used, characteristic of the product, packaging and marketing requirements;
- A prototype of the formulations are developed, that comply with all the standards. This includes extensive research of appropriate raw materials used for developing a suitable formulation for the application required by you;
- Develop documentation e.g. MSDS, label with all the information that needs to be provide on the package;
- Once the product is developed, the next step is to initiate the process of certification.
Qualified Chemists can assist you through the whole process, from the design of the formula to the certification of the products. They will keep the contact with the certification organization, find the supplier for the packaging and produce all the required documents.
Environmental-friendly certifications
Some environment friendly certifications include;
1. EPA Safer Choice
This certification label is used to endorse that all the ingredients included in the product have compliance check done by the United States Environmental Protection Agency review panel.
Products include: EPA Safer Choice certification can be used to label an array of institutional and household cleaning products including hand soaps, floor care, laundry detergents products, etc.
Certification Criteria: every product certified by Safer Choice needs to contain safest ingredients that are confirmed acceptable by EPA. The evaluation process has pass through a severe set of health and environmental compliance norm, from a chemical perspective. These norms are meant to address any health and environmental issues. The products also need to meet other safety criteria, including even the packaging of the product. The package should display a list of ingredients used in manufacturing of the products.
2. The Carpet and Rug Institute (CRI)
CRI approves products in the carpet and rug cleaning regime, including vacuum cleaners and extracting machines for its performance and dirt control. All the cleaning chemicals should meet quality standards for eliminating dust and appearance of the rug, without damaging the quality of the carpet. In addition, the Green Label Plus authenticates liquids that ensures reduction of carbon footprints.
3. The Chlorine Free Products Association (CFPA)
CPFA evaluation process is based on usage of Chlorine contain in the products. The certification identifies products that have no contents of Chlorine in them. Ideally these are tagged with ‘Totally Chlorine Free’ and ‘Processed Chlorine Free’ symbols.
4. Chemical Certification Scheme (CCS)
As per the requirements of environment protection for products in international abode, all the chemicals used in the making of these products have to be tested and certified for detection of hazardous substances.
5. ECOLOGO® Certification Program
All products certified by ECOLOGY are endorsed for products, services and packaging materials with minimal environmental impact. This certification ensures that the products have gone through a robust testing process, with strict compliance check adhering to environmental standards. These are based on a variety of metrics with a number of criteria encompassing industries like building and construction, cleaning materials, Office products, paper, plastic, personal care, renewable electricity and other standards. This program ensures environmentally sustainable products and services.
6. Environmental Choice New Zealand (ECNZ)
ECNZ is an official environmental certification, endorsed by New Zealand government that was formed understanding the need of manufacturers for production of goods that caste reduced impact on the environment.
All the products are mandated to abide by environmental standards raised for certification under this grading. They have defined benchmarks that all products need to meet, in order to get licensing with ‘Environmental Choice’ trademark.
ECNZ is recognised globally for its environmental standards and principles. They are a member of Global Ecolabelling Network (GEN) that embraces the ideology of environmentally sustainable products and services.
7. Green Seal
Green Seal certification is an environmental standard of cleaning products for industrial and institutional cleaners, including all-purpose cleaning liquids, glass, carpet cleaning and biological cleaning products. These chemical based liquids are efficiently used in offices, factories, warehouses, storages, etc.
These standards use a compliance check for performance and environmental health for schools, hospitals, nursing homes, and other facilities. Maintaining the standards assures a Green Seal certification for chemical industry products.
8. OEKO-TEX
With certification from OEKO-TEX offers a competitive benefit for textile manufacturers. With the growing demands on sustainable textile products, these standards are applicable to all the textile related products.
Chemical classification is a determination process that aims to classify compounds or elements based on certain characteristics, functions, structural properties and harmful impacts they can have on health.
The process encompasses identifying and evaluating the physical properties of the chemicals, with potential impact on human health. During classification of hazardous chemicals, the information that should go on the labels and Material Safety Data Sheet is determined.
To ensure that you remain compliant with mandatory labels and signage meeting GHS and WHS standards of your state, is by getting a full chemical safety audit on your business premise to prepare Material Safety Data Sheets for reviewing your existing chemical containers or manage their new inventory. These audits are carried out by chemists or professional companies who provide Safety Data Sheets which comply with GHS Standards.
The audit process usually encompasses:
- Compilation of a detailed list of chemicals used and stored in the business premise and other locations;
- List of signage, warning placards, and pictograms you have used for your stored chemical items, location of the storage, and method used for installation of these containers;
- Material Safety Data Sheet for chemicals stored on the premise as per GHS standards;
- Reviewing relevant WHS regulations, code of conducts and standards of the country.
If you need either a full audit of the hazardous chemicals in your workplace or only preparing/updating your Safety Data Sheets, get in touch with a compliance expert for consultation. The specialists come with a wealth of experience auditing the hazardous chemicals as per GHS standards to abide with necessary legislations and regulations.