how green seal develops standards
The goal of Green Seal's standards is to identify sustainability leadership performance levels and practices for products, services, and companies in order to encourage and increase demand for such performance. The process used to achieve this goal is based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards for environmental labeling programs, ISO 14020 and 14024 -- international standards for ecolabelling. The main components are that the standards have a life cycle approach and are open, transparent, and include stakeholder input.
Life Cycle Approach
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Product, service, and company categories are evaluated using a life-cycle approach to ensure that all significant environmental and social impacts are considered in the development of a standard, from raw materials extraction through manufacturing to use and disposal. Such an evaluation involves thorough, state-of-the-art scientific evaluations using internationally accepted methodologies. See the Green Seal research page for more information about life cycle research. |
Stakeholder-Involved Process
The procedures used for developing these standards include the key characteristics of being independent, open, transparent, and having due process. For example, all interested parties are able to register for a standard development project and review and comment on draft documents. Further, there is an appeals process for unresolved issues. The main steps for each standard development project are public scoping, public review of the proposed standard, final stakeholder review, and issuance of the final standard. Information about each project, and how to get involved as a stakeholder, can be found on the standard in development project web page.
Process Approved
Green Seal's standard development procedures have been reviewed by third parties and found to meet:
Green Seal’s standard development procedures also meet the requirements for credible ecolabels from the following organizations:
Contact
standards@greenseal.org for more information.
*While Green Seal develops American National Standards on sustainability, not all Green Seal standards are American National Standards. This is because Green Seal standards are leadership standards that by definition may exclude the majority of a market. As a result, the requirement that ANSI has for a consensus approval may not always be possible. This is why the ISO process permits approval of leadership standards without consensus. Green Seal, through this work, has been helping to recognize leadership in sustainability for over 20 years.