GreenGuard

Indoor Air Quality Certified

What is GreenGuard?

GREENGUARD Product Emission Standard For Children & Schools

GREENGUARD Children & Schools Product Certification Program complies with the State of California’s Department of Health Services Standard Practice (CA Section 01350) for testing chemical emissions from building products used in schools, offices and other sensitive environments. As such, GREENGUARD Children & Schools Certified products can be used as a strategy to earn valuable credits in the CHPS Best Practices Manual for K-12 schools (CHPS/GEI Agreement), U.S. Green Building Council's LEEDâ Green Building Rating System, Green Guide for Healthcareä, NAHB Green Building Guidelines, Green Globes, Regreen and numerous other local authorities green building codes.

Children are more heavily exposed to environmental toxins than adults, as a result their exposure levels are the basis for sensitive environments. They consume more food, water, and have higher inhalation rates per pound of body weight than adults. To account for inhalation exposure to young children with greater sensitivities, a body burden correction factor of 0.43 has been applied to current allowable emission levels from indoor materials and furnishings.

In addition, the exposure to individual volatile chemicals, as detected in the C6 - C16 mass spectrometric analysis screen, has been adjusted to allow no greater than 1/100 currently published Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) and no greater than ½ California's Chronic Reference Exposure Levels (CRELs). In many cases, the 1/100 safety factor reduction of TLVs results in the most stringent requirements for an extensive range of VOCs. The total VOC or TVOC measurement will take into account the complex mixture of all VOCs found to be out gassing from the product, including those with and without TLVs or CRELs.

In addition, limits on emissions of total phthalates (consisting of dibutyl (DBP), diethylhexyl (DEHP), diethyl (DEP), dimethyl (DMP), butylbenzyl (BBP), and dioctyl (DOP) phthalates) have been added to the list of requirements. Recent research indicates that inhalation is an important route of exposure to phthalates, and that these chemicals have been associated with endocrine disorders, reproductive and developmental toxicity, asthma and allergies.

Emission controls are established to define low-emitting materials for educational and learning/play environments for young children

GREENGUARD Certification Standards for Low-Emitting Products

GREENGUARD Environmental Institute (GEI) has established performance based standards to define goods with low chemical and particle emissions for use indoors, primarily building materials, interior furnishings, furniture, cleaning and maintenance products, electronic equipment, and personal care products. The standard establishes certification procedures including test methods, allowable emissions levels, product sample collection and handling, testing type and frequency, and program application processes and acceptance.

GREENGUARD Allowable Emission Levels
All products are tested in dynamic environmental chambers following the GREENGUARD test method, “Method for Measuring Various Chemical Emissions using Dynamic Environmental Chambers,” as posted on this web site. The method follows the guidance of ASTM standards D-5116-06 and D-6670-01, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's testing protocol for furniture, the State of Washington's protocol for interior furnishings and construction materials, and California’s DHS standard practice for the Special Environmental Requirements, Specification Section 01350. Products are measured for emission levels, which must meet the following indoor air concentrations within seven (7) days of unpackaging.

Air concentrations are based on the product being in a room 32 m3 in volume with outdoor air ventilation based on ASHRAE 62.1-2007 or the USEPA’s recommended exposure factors. Maximum allowable emission levels are those required by the State of Washington's indoor air quality program for new construction, the US Environmental Protection Agency's procurements specifications, the recommendations from the World Health Organization, Germany's Blue Angel Program for electronic equipment, LEED for New Construction, and LEED for Commercial Interiors. Office furniture products meeting these allowable emission levels also meet the requirements of LEED credit 4.5 and the BIFMA X7.1 Conformance standard. When multiple emission values are recommended, the lesser, or more stringent, is used as the acceptable emission value for GREENGUARD Certification.

Green Guard

GreenGuard

Indoor Air Quality Certified

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