The ENVIRODESIC™ Certification Program
Envirodesic™ Certification identifies a growing family of cleaner products, healthier buildings, and expert services that promote "Maximum Indoor Air Quality™" and sustainability. The Envirodesic™ certification mark is licensed to qualified builders, manufacturers and service-providers whose buildings, products and services meet stringent standards for healthy indoor environments. The Envirodesic team also helps manufacturers develop products which are ecologically sustainable.
The Envirodesic™ Certification Program is administered by Small & Rubin Ltd. and has access to international experts in low-pollution design, toxicology, medicine, indoor air quality, marketing and related areas.
One of the areas that Envirodesic™ has been involved in from our inception is cleaning. The world's cleaning industries have been responsible over the last many decades for a great deal of pollution both indoors in our homes, workplaces and public buildings, and outdoors in our waterways. The industry has been obsessed with creating ever-more-potent chemistry to kill pathogens on environmental surfaces, and has conditioned the public to think that they require products that will kill everything they touch, and that will add a variety of 'refreshing' odors to indoor air.
Over the past decade we have been privileged to work with an individual who has been at the forefront of change in the cleaning industry and who has consistently led the movement to 'greener' cleaners in the broadest, most sustainable and healthiest sense of the word. Michael Rochon of Cogent Environmental Solutions, a Canadian company, has been among the first to recognize that everything we clean with must be compatible even with the most sensitive of human beings. He has sounded the alert that the basic paradigms of cleaning and disinfecting need to be re-examined worldwide, and he has proven his point by developing series after series of products that conform to new and more sustainable principles.
Cogent Environmental Solutions first developed the ECOgent line of 100% natural household and commercial cleaners that are safe even for chemically sensitive people. Envirodesic™-certified and fully sustainable, the products led the way in low aquatic toxicity and they biodegrade readily even under anaerobic conditions. They were also proven to be non-hazardous to aquatic life in concentrations likely to enter the environment.Not to be content, Cogent went on to develop a philosophy of cleaning - "Cleaning without Harming", which led to further questions about industry practices, including the use of surfactants and disinfectant cleaners. Out of this grew "Detergent Free Cleaning", a new series of Envirodesic™-certified formulations that clean without surfactants, that are free of volatiles, and that are fully renewable and sustainable.
These new cleaning products have reached the mainstream through licencees such as Chemspec and ServiceMaster Clean™. ServiceMaster Clean™'s 'Go Green' program includes a series of Envirodesic™-certified products such as Green for Oxidizing, Green for General Purpose, Green for Carpet, Green for Floors, Green for Restrooms, and Green for Degreasing.One of Envirodesic™ Certification's other focuses is building technology. How a building is built, and what it is made of, has a huge influence on the quality of air within it. Most people are surprised to learn that the building envelope itself plays a major role in the health of a building.
Our premier Envirodesic™-certified building product is The Icynene Insulation System, a breakthrough spray-in-place soft foam insulation that totally seals a building with zero-emission insulation material. An Icynene building envelope is the ideal base for a healthy building, and is even suitable for construction for people who are hypersensitive.Because its specific properties, including undetectable product emissions, represent a significant advance in the insulation field, Icynene is at the moment the only insulation certified by the Envirodesic™ Certification Program. If readers find other manufacturers making claims to the contrary, they are invited to contact us immediately for verification.
For further information about The Icynene Insulation System, click below on articles, presentations, brochures, and Icynene's own web pages.
PowerPoint Presentation on Icynene and Health (for download)
Envirodesic™ Certification Summary for Icynene Insulation (for download)
Icynene Inc. Web Pages
