Reading Between the Labels
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 02.13.08
Greenguard meets all the tests for a good green label. It is a true independent third-party certification and is recognized by LEED and just about everyone else, "helping customers choose healthy, low-emitting products and materials and demonstrating a commitment to the environment through better indoor air quality."
So we were surprised to see an ad for Owens Corning's pink fibreglass insulation saying that it had Greenguard certification. We thought it had a formaldehyde binder in it. So how did it get Greenguard?
It seems that rules for getting Greenguard certification don't assess relative levels of goodness, just whether it is better than the standard they set, which in this case is 1/10th the American workplace standard or the National Ambient Air Quality Standard set by the EPA. We at TreeHugger know how eager the American Government has been to tighten environmental standards over the past few years. Is that good enough?
Johns-Manville uses an acrylic binder and is completely formaldehyde free, as is Guradian insulation.
So clearly one cannot rely on a Greenguard label to pick the greenest insulation, no matter what they call themselves in their marketing. Formaldehyde free is better than low formaldehyde, and a rating system should recognize that, but doesn't.
So look behind the labels to the Material Safety Data Sheets, and if the company does not make them easy to find on their website then choose another manufacturer.
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What kind of emissions does acrylic binder produce?
The GREENGUARD Certification was developed to protect indoor air quality. For this reason, GREENGUARD Certification carefully and rigorously measures inhalation exposure from thousands of potentially harmful chemicals. To properly gauge this, GREENGUARD Certification focuses on chemical emissions from products and not on a product's formulation or content.
Many of Owens Corning’s products (including the pink insulation) meet the more stringent GREENGUARD Children & Schools criteria, which requires that VOC levels are 1/100th TLV and that Formaldehyde levels are 0.0135 parts per million (this is the same criteria that the CA DHS requires for emissions as indicated by Section 01350). In addition, the GREENGUARD Children & Schools standard sets limits on other chemicals such as Aldehydes and Phthalates. To view the GREENGUARD Certification standards, please visit http://www.greenguard.org.
While GREENGUARD Environmental Institute focuses on emissions, we believe it is important to consider a product's total lifecycle when evaluating its environmental impact.
Maybe the problem is that we want to call things eco-friendly when it is really eco-friendlier. Should we not start differentiating a bit more? I go into more detail in my blog at http://angryafrican.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/make-it-better-how-friendly-is-eco-friendly/