2023 Impact Report
Impact Report2023
Welcome
There is no doubt we are confronting a time of existential environmental threats to humans and planet Earth. With each new report about melting glaciers, trash islands, and toxic chemicals in our blood, the daunting scale of the crises can leave each one of us feeling helpless to make a dent.
Green Seal exists to empower organizations and individuals to effect large-scale, transformative change through their purchasing choices. This concept is made real when you see the numbers in this Impact Report – figures like 1.7 billion plastic bottles saved annually by Green Seal-certified cleaning products, and 12.5 million metric tons of CO2 emissions saved by Green Seal-certified sanitary paper each year. For the first time, this year’s report provides household product metrics that anybody can use to gauge the annual impact of their purchasing choices.
Green Seal offers a powerful model for collective impact, and we are meeting the moment in bold new ways.
With packaging and containers now comprising 28% of the solid waste generated in the U.S., Green Seal assembled leading producers, brands and stakeholders to develop a program to accelerate the transition to more sustainable packaging.
With growing evidence that the use of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in products poses a grave global health threat, Green Seal took a leadership position on these “forever chemicals” by banning all approximately 12,000 PFAS in certified cleaning and personal care products – not just the handful of PFAS commonly prohibited by regulatory bodies.
And with millions of single-use plastic trash bags added to landfills each year, we developed a plastic efficiency metric to rate the sustainability of trash bags by how efficiently they use virgin material and identify those that score in the top 30%. If all US trash bags were to achieve certification to Green Seal’s standard, there would be a 37% reduction in plastic use for this category.
This year, we amplified the reach of our initiatives through new or expanded collaboration with Amazon, Wayfair, the U.S. Green Building Council, Healthy Schools Campaign, Health Product Declaration Collaborative, and others.
If Green Seal’s market transformation model proves anything, it’s that collective action drives impact. In this report, we are proud to highlight how, together with you, we are accelerating the transition to greater safety and sustainability in the products and spaces we use every day.
Meeting the Moment
Addressing historic challenges requires bold action. From packaging waste and plastic pollution to PFAS and indoor air quality, Green Seal launched ambitious initiatives to confront some of the most intractable health and environmental problems of our time.
-
Sustainable Packaging
With packaging waste an urgent and growing concern, Green Seal assembled leading producers, brands and stakeholders to help us design a program to accelerate a global transition to sustainable packaging.
Learn More
-
Trash Bags & Can Liners
To address the significant carbon and plastic pollution impacts of trash bags and can liners, Green Seal developed a certification standard that will empower buyers to quickly identify liners that use the least amount of virgin plastic necessary to maintain top performance.
Learn More
-
PFAS
With growing evidence that thousands of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances pose a significant threat to human health and the environment, Green Seal took a leadership position on these “forever chemicals” by banning all PFAS in certified cleaning and personal care products.
Learn More
-
Healthy Green Schools & Colleges Program
With 50 percent of U.S. schools reporting poor indoor air quality, we launched a comprehensive program centered around the first national healthy-air standard for school facilities, filling a critical gap by providing schools with the support they need to ensure a quality of school facility that every student in America deserves.
Learn More
Our Impacts
Green Seal’s sustainability compass targets four key areas that ensure certified products truly are safer for people and the planet. Here’s how Green Seal-certified products achieved impacts that matter in 2022.
-
Protecting Human Health
Green Seal screens out chemicals that don’t belong in household or professional products, making it simple to make healthier, safer choices with confidence. Certified products are free of carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive toxins, and common toxic ingredients such as phthalates, methanol, and bisphenol A (BPA).
9.6 million
students and teachers protected fromtoxic chemicals/asthma triggers in 2022through their schools’ use of Green Seal-certified cleaning products. -
Preserving the Climate
Green Seal standards address a product’s global warming potential through criteria for energy use and packaging, limits on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ozone depleting compounds, and along with key product attributes, such as cold-water washing for laundry care products, 100% recycled content for sanitary paper, and refillable dispensers for cleaning products.
12.5 million
metric tons of CO2 emissions saved by
Green Seal-certified sanitary paper
– the equivalent of taking
2.7 million cars off the road.* -
Minimizing Waste
Green Seal-certified products use environmentally preferable packaging materials, include recycling instructions, and provide detailed directions for proper use to minimize product waste. Our functional performance criteria ensure that certified products perform as well as or better than conventional alternatives, preventing waste from discarded products that failed to meet consumer expectations.
1.7 billionindustry-grade 1-liter plastic
bottles saved by Green Seal-certified
professional cleaning products each year.** -
Ensuring Clean Water
Green Seal-certified products protect water resources by minimizing water use and avoiding chemicals that can harm or kill aquatic wildlife. Green Seal’s strict criteria for bioaccumulating compounds prevent the build-up of contaminants in fish and other organisms, which, in turn, helps protect humans from ingesting unsafe levels of chemicals from lower in the food chain.
12.4 billiongallons of water saved by
Green Seal-certified sanitary paper products
each year due to 100% recycled content.
Your Impacts
Your product choices have measurable impacts. Here’s how you made an impact for good each time you chose a product with the Green Seal mark.
Laundry Care
Sanitary Paper
Paint
Power in Partnership
Green Seal strengthened and expanded partnerships to foster the availability of products, services, and spaces that are healthier for people and the planet.
-
ISEAL
Green Seal became an ISEAL community member joining a prestigious, committed group of sustainability organizations that are driving positive social and environmental change.
-
Wayfair
Green Seal’s partnership with Wayfair means that Green Seal-certified products automatically qualify for inclusion in Wayfair’s Shop Sustainably filter, indicating to shoppers that the products are safer for people and the planet.
-
Amazon/Climate Pledge Friendly
Green Seal’s partnership with Amazon expanded to the U.K. and the European Union. Now, Green Seal-certified products display Amazon’s Climate Pledge Friendly badge in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Italy, France, and Spain, signifying to Amazon shoppers that the products meet meaningful sustainability standards.
-
Health Product Declaration Collaborative
Green Seal partnered with HPD Collaborative to become an approved Health Product Declarations (HPD) preparer and third-party verifier. This collaboration allows Green Seal to prepare and verify HPDs free of charge for any manufacturer that pursues paint certification.
-
USGBC
We partnered with USGBC to ensure our certification standard for paints and coatings earns maximum recognition in the LEED® green building rating system, enabling purchasers, facility managers, and homeowners to confidently choose paints that qualify for multiple LEED points and are verified to the highest standard of health, safety, and functional performance.
-
Booking.com
Booking.com’s new program highlights Green Seal-certified hotels with a Travel Sustainable badge, signifying to travelers and travel bookers that the hotels meet meaningful sustainability standards.
-
Whole Foods Market
Green Seal helped Whole Foods Market execute its company-wide quality standards program, providing independent review and evaluating suppliers of household cleaners against the supermarket chain’s criteria for environmental impact, safety, ingredient labeling, and efficacy testing.
A Seal Buyers Trust
federal, state, and local
purchasing policies
specify Green Seal
square feet
of commercial space cleaned
daily by Green Seal-certified
cleaning service providers
certified products
(by SKU)
Countries with Green Seal-Certified Products and Services
Customer Spotlight
Only the safest, most sustainable, and most effective products and services achieve the Green Seal. Companies undergo a comprehensive review, covering everything from their formulas to manufacturing practices to ensure they meet our science-based standard criteria. Here’s how our partners are making an impact.
Newly Certified
We welcomed the following brands to the Green Seal community.
Newly Participating
The following brands and organizations have begun the process to certify their first product or service with Green Seal, demonstrating their commitment to meeting the highest standards.
Thanks
Thank you to Green Seal’s Board of Directors for their support, guidance, and expertise. Learn about the members of our Board of Directors and our staff here.
Special thanks to 3M, Aqua ChemPacs, Buckeye, Diversey, Ecolab, Essential Industries, Hillyard, and PortionPac for contributing data and expertise to the development of Green Seal’s plastics saving metric.