The certifications explained

EPA Safer Choice is run by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Every ingredient must meet criteria for human health and the environment covering carcinogenicity, reproductive and developmental toxicity, aquatic toxicity and persistence, and the standard adds pH limits, VOC restrictions, packaging requirements and, unusually among these marks, performance requirements 4. EPA is explicit that the label addresses ingredient safety rather than the whole product life cycle 4. Certified products sit in a searchable database 5.

Green Seal certifies products against standards covering health, environment and performance, developed through an open process with public and stakeholder input 6. Like Safer Choice it is a product certification, and silent on animal testing and corporate conduct.

The EU Ecolabel rests on Regulation (EC) No 66/2010. Criteria are set per product group through stakeholder consultation and pitched at the best 10 to 20 per cent of products on the EEA market, cleaning being one group with published criteria 7. National Competent Bodies verify, and a licence number takes the form XX/YYY/ZZZ 7.

The Nordic Swan Ecolabel is run by Nordic Ecolabelling, set up in 1989 by the Nordic Council of Ministers and operated through secretariats in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden that handle licence applications and inspection visits, with criteria published for each product area 8.

Cradle to Cradle Certified is run by the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute across five categories: material health, product circularity, clean air and climate protection, water and soil stewardship, and social fairness. There are four levels, Bronze to Platinum, and the overall level equals the lowest reached across the five, which is the detail most readers miss. That level and a per-category scorecard sit on the certificate and in the public registry 9.

MADE SAFE, a programme of Nontoxic Certified, screens a product against a published banned and restricted list and requires disclosure of every substance and process in the formulation, including finishes, adhesives, dyes, coatings and processing aids 10. It reviews what the manufacturer submits, not the finished bottle.

EWG VERIFIED, run by the Environmental Working Group, requires a product to avoid EWG’s ingredients of concern, disclose all intentionally added ingredients including fragrance components, and follow good manufacturing practices, with personal care products also scoring in the green range of Skin Deep. It runs on a signed licensing agreement, and a decision is honoured for one year 11.

The USDA Certified Biobased Product label is run by the United States Department of Agriculture and reports one number: biobased content as a percentage, measured by ASTM D6866 as the ratio of new organic carbon to total organic carbon and verified by a third-party laboratory, with a 25 per cent floor outside the designated federal categories 12. It is a sourcing measure: the percentage says where the carbon came from, not what the molecule does in a drain.

FSC comes as FSC 100%, FSC Mix or FSC Recycled, and covers forest management and the chain of custody of the wood or paper, with worker protections and community rights inside the scheme 1. On a home care pack it is almost always a statement about the carton.

Three compostability marks turn up and they are not interchangeable. BPI, the Biodegradable Products Institute, certifies commercial compostability against ASTM D6400, with D6868 and D6410 as options; a home scheme based on the French standard NF T 51-800 followed in 2025. Since 01/01/2020 it has required no intentionally added fluorinated chemicals and total organic fluorine below 100 ppm, and every certified item sits in a searchable catalogue 13.

TÜV AUSTRIA runs OK compost INDUSTRIAL against EN 13432, assuming a plant at 55 to 60 degrees Celsius, and says plainly that a product carrying only that mark should not go into a garden heap 14. OK compost HOME tests biodegradation, disintegration, ecotoxicity and heavy metals at garden heap temperatures, and is not based on a standard: it became the basis for AS 5810, NF T 51800 and EN 17427 15.

The Seedling is a collective trademark owned by European Bioplastics, with certification performed by DIN CERTCO and TÜV AUSTRIA Belgium against EN 13432 16. It means industrial compostability, not home compostability, and a certified product carries a registration number beginning 7P 16.

Leaping Bunny and Cruelty Free International are the same thing, worth saying because the two names read as two marks. Cruelty Free International has run the programme behind the Leaping Bunny logo since 1996. A brand must adopt a fixed cut-off date after which no animal testing is permitted, examine its supply chain to ingredient level, agree to annual external audits, and apply the criteria in every market 17. Approval attaches to the brand and covers testing policy, not ingredients.

Certified B Corporation is awarded by B Lab to a company. Under the long-running model a company reached a verified score of at least 80 on the B Impact Assessment, amended its governing documents to commit to considering all stakeholders, and recertified every three years 2. Under B Lab Standards V2 that score threshold is replaced by minimum requirements across seven Impact Topics, verified through a third-party assurance provider 3. Neither version speaks to a formula.

1% for the Planet is a giving commitment: members donate 1 per cent of annual sales, not profits, to environmental organisations 18. The requirement is about money, and the membership page describes no assessment of a product or its contents. Climate marks, ISO management system certificates and retailer awards belong in the same group: they record something about the business, not about an ingredient list.

A licence number is the difference between a logo and a claim a reader can check. It names the holder and the scope, and usually points at a public register, so anyone can confirm the certificate exists, covers this product and has not lapsed. An EU Ecolabel number reads XX/YYY/ZZZ: country, product group, applicant 7. An FSC licence code reads FSC-C plus six digits and can be searched against the certificate database 19. A Seedling registration for a finished product begins 7P 16. BPI, EPA and the Cradle to Cradle Institute publish searchable registers instead 13 5 9.

A logo printed without a number, on a page naming no certifying body, is not checkable. That is not an accusation; it is a description of what a reader can do with it.

Certifications are one of the things we compare here, and how we read them is short to state. A mark whose recorded name contains Safer Choice, Cradle to Cradle, Green Seal or Biobased counts as a substantive product standard, because each audits the product or the formula against published criteria. Every other mark counts for less, and a pile of company and welfare marks does not stand in for one audited product standard.

The rule is a proxy for how much work a mark represents, and a rough one. The EU Ecolabel and the Nordic Swan are audited product standards with published criteria, national verification and licence numbers, and this rule treats each as a lesser mark. That is wrong on the merits. It has not changed an outcome yet, because no product in these tables carries either, but the flaw is in the rule today and we would rather print it than be caught by it. MADE SAFE and EWG VERIFIED are treated the same way, with a better argument, since both screen what a manufacturer discloses.

There is a second, duller failure mode. We match on the text of the certification as we transcribed it from the brand’s page, so a mark recorded loosely could be read as a lesser one when it is a substantive product standard, or the reverse. Those transcriptions print in the certification cell of every table, which is the only reason a reader can catch us at it.