Green Seal will banPFAS in several product categories, including paints and coatings.
At the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, the environmental standard development and certification organisation Green Seal® has announced that it will prohibit any per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in its certified paints and coatings, floor care products, adhesives and degreasers.
The products certified by Green Seal meet one of the highest benchmarks for safety and environmental protection in the marketplace. The criteria are very stringent, for this reason the certified paints and coatings obtain points both for the LEED Low-Emitting Materials credit as well as the LEED v4.1 Material Ingredient Optimisation credit, making the Green Seal certification standard one of a select few to achieve this recognition.
The standards of Green Seal have long forbidden long-chain PFAS (formally classified as hazardous), but an increasing amount of evidence notes that short-chain PFAS have the same harmful health and environmental effects as the ones they will replace. As a matter of fact, Green Seal is updating its standards for paints, coatings, adhesives and degreasers to prohibit all 12,000 chemicals in this class, where PFAS are frequently used as functional ingredients.
“Both producers and buyers know the hazards of PFAS but lack reliable ways to ensure products are free of these toxic chemicals. Green Seal’s standard criteria will eliminate PFAS throughout the product formula supply chain while maintaining performance requirements, so buyers can choose safer, healthier, and effective products with confidence,” has stated Doug Gatlin, CEO of Green Seal.
A recent study pointed out that approximately 50% of the tested paint products contain PFAS, which can be used for glossiness, reducing peeling, stain resistance and waterproofing. Most acrylic and wax floor finishes on the market contain PFAS as levelling and wetting agents. In addition, PFAS are also used for increasing the adhesives wettability and for reducing the flammability in both cleaning and degreasing agents.
Lastly, Green Seal has also partnered with the material-health leader HPDC to become an approved preparer and third-party verifier of Health Product Declarations. Green Seal can indeed prepare an HPD report for products that are certified and non-certified, in order to increase the ingredient transparency and to assure that the product counts toward the LEED v4.1 Material Ingredient credit.