Q&A: How does Green Seal certify products?

Green Seal, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization, stands as a guardian of cleaners that would call themselves green. It requires that products pass a test to be certified as environmentally safe.

But it doesn’t tell consumers what’s in them any more specifically than Procter & Gamble. In an interview, Green Seal Inc. vice president of certification Mark Petruzzi explains why he doesn’t think consumers should worry about that:

Q. How many cleaning products do you certify?

A. About 500, including general purpose, bathroom, glass, carpet and floor cleaners, along with floor finishes and strippers and handsoaps.

Q. What does certification take?

A. First, a company must be tested and show it can remove a certain percentage of the soil in a test that is reproducible in a lab. Then, it must meet 15 other criteria dealing with human health. They include oral toxicity, inhalation toxicity, skin and eye irritation, skin sensitization and aquatic toxicity because these products will go down the drain.

Q. Why don’t you require manufacturers to disclose ingredients?

A. We sign a confidentiality agreement with them where they have to disclose to Green Seal all proprietary materials including fragrances, and we require them to disclose their complete formulas. They give us all the raw materials they are using and we determine, does the product meet our criteria?

Q. Why don’t companies want ingredients publicly known?

A. Some of the raw materials they are using are proprietary. If competitors knew what the ingredients were in the product, they could make a knockoff version. The other argument is, to the average consumer buying a laundry product, if they listed all chemical names in there, would the average consumer be able to do anything with all the information?

Q. How do the tests work?

A. To determine that a product meets our criteria, we can verify that from the raw materials used. We also verify they contain no carcinogens, that they are not reproductively toxic, and do not contain a mutagen or any known endocrine disruptor.

Q. Can we see the results?

A. We don’t disclose results of the tests. You just know by looking at our 15 criteria that it passed all 15 of our standards.

Q. Basically, you tell the consumer, “Trust us.”

A. That’s exactly it. Look at how we were founded. We emerged from other environmental non-government organizations and the foundation community. Back in the late 1980s, they decided that consumers needed an independent third party to decide how products are determined green.We charge companies a flat fee to evaluate their products, whether they sell one or a million bottles. If a cleaning company wanted to give us $1,000 or $1 million because we are a great organization, we couldn’t accept it. That would be a clear conflict of interest. We don’t do any lobbying on Capitol Hill.

Q. Some researchers rap the producers of many green cleaners for not testing their products for asthma risks. Why don’t you?

A. That is still an emerging science. At the time our cleaner standards were developed, there was not a list of things that cause or exacerbate or trigger an asthmatic reaction.

For the past 15 months, we have been revising our institutional cleaner standard for office buildings, schools, hotels and commercial cleaners. The new standard was released in November for public comment, and it has a draft proposal for asthma.

We’ve been working with hundreds of stakeholders from interest groups, trying to ascertain if there is a list generally accepted to be scientifically valid and peer-reviewed.

Davis covers environmental issues for the Arizona Daily Star, Tucson. Contact: tdavis@azstarnet.com.