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Setting a Higher Standard

When you buy an SC Johnson product, you can count on the fact that it meets existing government standards as well as our rigorous standards for health and environmental impact. 

Our internal standards

Since 2001, the SC Johnson Greenlist ingredient selection programme has guided the company’s product development. The Greenlist programme helps the company continually improve its products by choosing ingredients to better protect human health and the environment

The Greenlist programme goes well beyond what’s legally required. And, it’s a significant investment to spend time and resources on every single ingredient decision. But it’s our commitment to the families who use our products: We will always make the most informed choices we can, and using this information, we determine how to make our products effective and safe.

SC Johnson Greenlist Programme

Every ingredient in every SC Johnson product goes through the rigorous Greenlist programme. Its centrepiece is a science-based, four-step evaluation that looks at both hazard and risk. It’s grounded in best-in-class data collection, and driven by our commitment to continually improve our products.

The four-step evaluation at the heart of the Greenlist programme looks at these criteria:

  1. Chronic human health hazards, such as the potential to cause cancer or reproductive diseases
  2. Long-term environmental hazards, meaning the potential to persist, accumulate and be toxic in the environment
  3. Acute risks to human and environmental health, such as mammalian or aquatic toxicity
  4. Other potential effects, for example whether an ingredient could cause an allergic reaction on the skin  

We take great care to choose ingredients that pass each of the steps in our four-step evaluation process. There are a small number of cases where the best available ingredient, like the active ingredient in an insecticide, might fail one of these steps. If so, it goes through a risk assessment to determine the level that is safe for humans and the environment, and we then apply an added degree of caution.

SETTING STANDARDS FOR SAFE

Any potential ingredient on Earth — including oxygen and water — can be toxic at a high enough amount. So, every ingredient in an SC Johnson product must be assessed to determine how much is and is not safe. There are industry standards for safety, of course. But at SC Johnson, we go further.

We start with a hazard assessment using the information from our ongoing data collection. When there’s a potential hazard, we evaluate the ingredient to determine at what concentration it could be used, if at all, without any known adverse effects to human health or the environment. That’s the safe level.

Then, we conduct an additional assessment focused on exposure. SC Johnson scientists look at how a product is intended to be used and how it might be used by consumers. We consider the broadest likely use, and go beyond that, in selecting what ingredients we will use and at what level.

As an example, for a cleaning product most likely to be used once a week, we take it many steps further. We review what the level of exposure to an ingredient may be, assuming it is used not just once, but many more times in one day We also consider the variety of ways in which consumers may use or come into contact with a product, such as a glass cleaning product used on a kitchen counter to prepare food. We consider all of those usage scenarios, and will multiply them out even further to create an even greater, more conservative safety factor. 

In each scenario, our goal is to determine the conservative “safer than safe” level. Then, that becomes the allowable concentration for SC Johnson scientists to continue product development.

IT ALL STARTS WITH DATA

The Greenlist programme is grounded by a rigorous, ongoing effort to collect best-in-class data about ingredients and their potential impact on human health and the environment. This includes reviewing supplier information and filling any gaps with publicly available, scientifically rigorous data.

Every ingredient is assessed against each of the criteria in our four-step evaluation. Hazard assessment is conducted by an external panel of experts that provides an unbiased scientific evaluation of each ingredient.

All of this is considered as we develop new products or improve existing ones. Plus, we continually make updates as new science becomes available.

Here are examples of publicly available data sources we use:

ECHA – European Chemicals Agency information on chemicals

TOXNET – U.S. National Institutes of Health’s database on toxicology, hazardous chemicals, environmental health and toxic releases

eChem Portal – Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development chemical substance property data

CA Prop 65 – California Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects
or other reproductive harm

INCHEM – International Programme on Chemical Safety site for chemical safety information from intergovernmental organisations

ToxCast/EDSP 21 – U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Endocrine Disruption Screening Programme
 

Principles for restrictions and use

SC Johnson maintains a list of ingredients that are not allowed or are only allowed at a very low level in products. This list is termed the “Not Allowable” list. It includes over 200 unique raw materials in roughly 90 material categories. These materials all meet legal and regulatory requirements — and are often used by our competitors. But they simply do not meet SC Johnson standards, so we use them only in very small amounts and try to avoid their use where possible.

Laws and Government Regulations

We design our products to meet all applicable laws and regulations. These include all European-wide regulations, including:

  • Consumer protection laws and regulations such as: the Directive on Consumer Rights (2011/83/EC); the Sales and Guarantees Directive (99/44/EC); the Price Indication Directive (98/6/EC); and the Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive (2006/114/EC).
  • The Biocidal Products Regulation (EU) No. 528/2012, which regulates the sale and use of biocidal products used to protect humans, animals, materials or articles against harmful organisms, like pests or bacteria. SC Johnson’s biocidal products sold in the EU include active substances approved by the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA).
  • The United Nations’ Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), implemented by the EU Classification, Labelling and Packaging of Substances and Mixtures (CLP) Regulation (EC) No. 1272/2008.
  • The Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulation (EC) No. 1907/2006, which establishes procedures for collecting and assessing information on the properties and hazards of all chemical substances, including cleaning products.
  • The Detergents Regulation (EC) No. 648/2004, and Cosmetic Products Regulation (EC) No. 1223/2009, which regulates the labelling and product safety of detergents and cosmetics.
  • CIPAC, WHO , FAO, OECD Guidelines, which are guidelines covering pesticide products issued by the Collaborative International Pesticides Analytical Council, World Health Organization, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
  • In addition to various local/regional regulations applicable in individual member states of the EU