UL ENVIRONMENT – Underwriters Laboratories, one of the country’s largest certification bodies, now offers a service to validate a variety of sustainable claims.
ECOLOGO – Launched by the Canadian Federal Government, the Ecologo certifes that products have met rigorous life cycle assessment. Ecologo is one of only two programs in North America that have been successfully audited by the Global Eco-labeling Network (GEN).
GREEN SEAL – Green Seal is the other North American certification body that has been successfully audited by GEN. This independent non-profit organization differentiates the way they develop their standard-setting process. The organization collaborates with industry, government, academia, and the public to create their formally approved, science-based standards.
GREEN-E – Green-e verifies renewable energy and greenhouse gas mitigation products. Their website allows consumers to search for products organized by power sources such as wind, solar, biomass, hydro, and geothermal energy.
CRADLE TO CRADLE – Based upon the renowned book by William McDonough and Michael Braungart of MBDC (McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry), the Cradle to Cradle Certification verifies that a product uses environmentally safe and healthy materials and is designed for material re-utilization, recycling or composting. It must also consider energy efficient manufacturing and the use of renewable energy. Furthermore, the manufacturing process must make efficient use of water and protect water quality.
This is an amazing posting INHABITAT!
I think you should consider making it a PDF and distributing it through websites like FMLink or IFMA. There are many people in the Facility Management field who would greatly benefit from a synopsis of this information.
Thank you for collecting and organizing this information.
Very helpful post! I work for the Rainforest Alliance and just wanted to share that in addition to work in forestry (which is how we started) we also have a very prominent sustainable agriculture program. You can find the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal on coffee, tea, cocoa, bananas and more.
Great information, but useless. Why useless? Because consumers do not want to leave an ecommerce website to research the latest and greatest certification. Consumers want the information at the point of sale, blog post or wherever the products is features. No PDF or single website will solve this. Why? Because consumers want more than just an explanation. They want a relationship with the manufactures; how ways the product manufactured, is it sustainable, why did you choose this green certification? The solutions will come when manufactures start to leverage marketing platforms that deliver information consumers want, where they want it and when they want it. That includes social media. Don\’t me consumers go to Twitter, Youtube and blogs. Bring that information to them!
Chris Glennon
SmartSymbols Marketing Platform
http://SmartSymbols.com
http://Twitter.com/SmartSymbols
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Hi All! Lea Here. An update to my post. I just found a very extensive eco-label database that you might be interested in. http://www.ecolabelindex.com/ecolabels/
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