Environmental Choice has recently announced that they are seeking input on “harmonizing” their cleaning product standard (CCD-146) with Green Seal’s comparable standard (GS-37), along with the overall harmonization between Green Seal and EcoLogo standards. And by “harmonization” I am assuming that for all practical purposes they are suggesting that they make the standards the same.

Over the years, I have become a big proponent of the “marketplace”, as history has repeatedly shown --- monopolies are incredibly inefficient. The challenge has always been to have “informed consumers” so that they would be capable of making the right decisions. I have intentionally highlighted “informed consumers” because I believe there is a real difference between an individual consumer walking down the aisle of the grocery store with 30 items on their shopping list, a handful of coupons looking to get the best bargains, and in a hurry because they have to get home to cook dinner and take care of all their other personal and family obligations. While I know I am generalizing, but I am of the opinion that the average individual consumer is NOT prepared to spend hours researching and analyzing which is the “right” glass cleaner for them or to interpret the meaning of various standards.

On the other hand, commercial and institutional consumers may be purchasing tens of thousands of dollars alone of just glass cleaner. They are prepared and willing to make the necessary effort to make an “informed decision”.

So while we need to make it extremely easy for individual consumers the issues are very different for our industry. Thus I am of the opinion that while we don’t need or want a hundred different standards and “seals of approval”, our industry is capable and the Green Cleaning Movement mature enough that we can handle more than one.

I am also of the opinion that competition among standard setting organizations will help improve the qualities of the standards, improve customer service, and reduce costs. I also believe that our customers, as informed consumers are smart enough to avoid standards that are just “cheap and easy imitations”, after all, they want to get “their monies worth” as well.

It is my belief that having Environmental Choice, Green Seal, Greenguard and others use their own unique approach to developing standards would ultimately benefit the Green Movement --- and please know that this is not an attack or lack of confidence in any of them individually. I simply believe that getting multiple approaches is particularly valuable in dealing with complex and emerging issues such as addressing asthma and other chronic health issues. These and other issues are extremely “challenging” simply because we know so little about the causes and subsequent solutions at this point. So relying exclusively on Green Seal’s approach would conceivably miss some of the best solutions. And if we only relied on a single source for solutions, we would all be driving black Model T cars, as Ford would have had little incentive to find better solutions and alternatives.

Added competition allows the marketplace to find alternatives and from my experience the first solution to a problem, while typically a valuable improvement is hardly the best and final solution.

And while harmonization may be better, easier and more profitable for the standard setters, it would be detrimental to the Green Cleaning Movement as a whole. Manufacturers would suffer, as would end-users, building owners, taxpayers and yes, even those who advocate for greater protection for worker and occupant health and the environment.

Thus, I would like to encourage you to send Environmental Choice a response expressing your opinion on their “harmonization” with Green Seal to encourage them to use their unique expertise to find even better solutions to improve health and the environment.

In responding to Environmental Choice, they ask that you read both CCD-146 (which can be found on their website: www.ecologo.org) and the latest draft version of GS-37 (which can be found on their website: www.greenseal.org).

All comments should be submitted to Robin Duchesneau at rduchesneau@terrachoice.com or by fax to: 1-613-247-2228). The deadline for submitting these comments is June 6, 2008.

Steve

 

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