Understanding Green Certifications for Cleaning Equipment and Products

There are multiple green certifications for cleaning equipment, products and chemicals, which makes it difficult to decipher and select a cleaning solution to fit your application needs while adhering to your environmental goals. To help understand a few of them, Advance defines the following green certifications:

• Green Seal – Describing its mission as providing science-based environmental certification standards, Green Seal certifies products in more than 40 categories—from household cleaning products to floor finishes and strippers for facility maintenance. Green Seal also established GS-42, a standard that provides guidance and certification for green cleaning services.
• EcoLogo – EcoLogo is recognized worldwide as a standard and certification mark for over a dozen broad product categories, including cleaning and janitorial supplies. EcoLogo standards address environmental attributes throughout the entire life cycle of the product or service and also require that certified products meet performance requirements to ensure they perform as well as conventional alternative products.
• EPA Design for the Environment – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) environmental program awards the DfE label to products in 15 broad categories based on the review of the ingredients in individual products. Applied to products such as commercial floor cleaners, a DfE label means that in the EPA’s judgment and based on current knowledge, the product contains only those ingredients that pose the least concern among chemicals in their class.
• Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance Rating System (LEED-EBOM) – LEED-EBOM contains the most specific equipment recommendations of any green cleaning standard. Specifically, the system’s IEQ Credit 3.4 - Sustainable Cleaning Equipment standard includes requirements ranging from low operating noises to engine efficiency.

For more information on any of these green certifications, please visit our green cleaning solutions page.