Oregon Sea Grant

Understanding Organizations’ Experiences with “Green” Certification: The Case of the U.S. EPA Safer Choice Standard

Organizations often encounter a series of barriers when attempting to obtain a certification. Then, having a comprehensive view of the guidelines helps organizations to overcome those challenges on time while increasing the probability to become a certified organization. This study focuses on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Safer Choice standard, a certification program that validates specific cleaning products. All Safer Choice products can carry its label, which means the certified product is safe for human use and environmentally friendly (EPA, 2021). Overall, the Safer Choice certification helps companies to reduce and prevent pollution by integrating the standard in the manufacturing and supply chain process. One of the expectations of this research is to fill the gaps identified in the literature review by combining a theoretical road-mapping approach while implementing a green certification. Our results suggest that a road-mapping approach can be useful for stakeholders to understand the Safer Choice certification and provide insight to pursue any other green certification.

Authors: Contreras Cruz, Angel, Tiruvengadam, Naveen, Elizondo Noriega, Armando, Güemes Castorena, David