Reference · Reading the label
Green cleaning certifications compared: what Green Seal, EPA Safer Choice, and UL ECOLOGO actually certify
Three marks turn up on cleaning products sold as green: Green Seal, EPA Safer Choice, and UL ECOLOGO. They are run by three different bodies, they measure different things, and none of them means the same thing as “safe.” This page prints what each one actually evaluates, how they differ, and how a facility choosing products for health should read them.
A green logo on a spray bottle is a claim, and the useful question is always the same: who made the claim, and against what. The three marks a purchasing manager sees most often on institutional cleaning products come from an independent nonprofit, a US federal agency, and a global safety-science company. They overlap in intent and diverge in method. Knowing which is which changes what a checkmark tells you.
All three are voluntary, third-party programs, which already puts them ahead of an unqualified “eco” or “natural” on a label, terms that mean nothing because no one verifies them. But third-party is a floor, not a finish. What matters for health is what the third party looked at.
The three at a glance
| Green Seal | EPA Safer Choice | UL ECOLOGO | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who runs it | Green Seal, an independent nonprofit | US Environmental Protection Agency | UL Solutions, a global safety-science company |
| Type | Nonprofit ecolabel and standard-setter | Government program | Private third-party certification |
| Cleaning-products standard | GS-37 (industrial and institutional cleaners) and others | Safer Choice Standard | UL 2700, Sustainability for Cleaning and Cleaning-Related Products |
| Core method | Lifecycle standard with health, VOC, packaging and performance criteria | Every chemical ingredient reviewed by EPA against safer-ingredient criteria | Multi-attribute, lifecycle-based standard across the whole product life |
| Ingredient review | Prohibits carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive toxins, and named health-concern ingredients | All ingredients reviewed, no de minimis exemption | Expanded prohibited list: PFAS, microplastics, antibacterial preservatives |
| Performance required | Yes, must clean effectively at recommended dilution | Yes, must perform comparably to conventional products | Yes, product performance is a scored attribute |
| Packaging in scope | Yes (recyclable / post-consumer / refillable) | Ingredient-focused; sustainable packaging is an add-on criterion | Yes, packaging and labeling requirements |
| Disinfectants | Covered by separate specialty standards | Not under Safer Choice; EPA uses the DfE label for antimicrobials | Covered by the same UL 2700 scope (cleaning and related) |
Compiled from each program’s own published materials, September 2026. Standard editions are revised periodically; check the current edition on the program site before specifying.
What each one is
Run by Green Seal, a nonprofit
Green Seal
Green Seal describes itself as “a global nonprofit organization pioneering ecolabeling,” and it both writes the standard and certifies against it as an independent third party. Its cleaning-products standard, GS-37, covers “industrial and institutional general-purpose, restroom, glass, and carpet cleaners.” Green Seal says its certified products “meet truly comprehensive health and sustainability requirements, from the beginning of the product lifecycle to the end,” and it notes that more than 100 federal, state, and local purchasing policies rely on the mark.
What sets GS-37 apart is that it explicitly writes for the buildings health-forward buyers worry about most. The standard says its criteria “include consideration of vulnerable populations in institutional settings such as schools, day-care facilities, nursing homes, and other facilities.”
Run by the US Environmental Protection Agency
EPA Safer Choice
Safer Choice is a US EPA program. In the agency’s own words, products with the label “help consumers and commercial buyers identify products with safer chemical ingredients, without sacrificing quality or performance.” EPA states that it “manages the Safer Choice program, which certifies products that contain safer ingredients for human health and the environment.” The distinguishing move is exhaustive ingredient review: “Before a product can carry the Safer Choice label, EPA reviews all chemical ingredients, regardless of their percentage in the product.”
The label sits on general cleaning products used, in EPA’s description, “in homes and in facilities like schools, hotels, offices, and sports venues.” It is not the label for disinfectants; see the note below.
Run by UL Solutions
UL ECOLOGO
ECOLOGO is administered by UL Solutions. UL describes ECOLOGO certifications as “voluntary, multi-attribute, life cycle-based environmental certifications that indicate a product has undergone rigorous scientific testing and exhaustive auditing.” For cleaning products the governing document is “UL 2700, the Standard for Sustainability for Cleaning and Cleaning Related Products.” UL says the current criteria carry an “expanded list of prohibited ingredients, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), antibacterial ingredients as preservatives, and microplastics,” along with updated restricted-compound criteria referencing REACH and California Proposition 65, VOC limits, and “strengthened packaging and labeling requirements.”
Where they actually differ
The unit of judgment. Safer Choice judges a product ingredient by ingredient: EPA reviews all of them “regardless of their percentage,” with no de minimis cutoff, against pass/fail safer-ingredient criteria. Green Seal and ECOLOGO judge the product as a whole against a lifecycle standard, in which ingredient hazard is one criterion sitting alongside VOC content, packaging, and performance. If your first concern is “what am I breathing and touching,” the ingredient-by-ingredient logic of Safer Choice maps most directly to that question. If your concern is the product’s full footprint, the lifecycle standards take in more.
What counts as a hazard. GS-37 states plainly that “the undiluted product shall not contain any ingredients or components that are carcinogens, mutagens, or reproductive toxins,” and it prohibits other ingredients “because they have demonstrated one or more of the following health concerns: endocrine disruption, neurotoxicity, and systemic toxicity.” ECOLOGO’s UL 2700 leans on a named prohibited list (PFAS, microplastics, antibacterial preservatives) and restricted-compound lists tied to REACH and Proposition 65. Safer Choice frames the same territory as a positive screen: every ingredient must clear EPA’s criteria for human health and the environment. Different routes to a similar destination, and a product can hold more than one mark.
Inhalation and VOCs. Both lifecycle standards put hard numbers on what evaporates. GS-37 caps VOC content at “the current regulatory limits of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for its product category,” and tightens it for glass cleaners. This matters for the person spraying, not just the planet: the volatile fraction is what reaches the lungs during use. It connects to the same concern this site raises in the register of cleaning hazards, where inhalation exposure is a recurring theme.
Performance is not optional in any of them. A common misread is that a green product trades cleaning power for safety. All three standards forbid that trade. Safer Choice requires that products “perform comparably to conventional products.” GS-37 requires a product to “clean common soils and surfaces in its category effectively, at the most dilute… manufacturer-recommended dilution level for routine cleaning.” ECOLOGO scores product performance as one of its attributes. A certified product that does not clean would not be certified.
What the marks do not guarantee
The single most important thing to understand about all three is what “green” or “safer” does not mean. EPA named its program “Safer,” not “safe,” on purpose. Safer is a comparison, not an absolute: a product safer than its conventional peers can still cause harm if it is misused, mixed, sprayed without ventilation, or left within a child’s reach. A certification evaluates the product as formulated and as directed. It does not follow the bottle into a small unventilated bathroom, and it does not make two products safe to combine.
Nor does any of these marks certify what a facility often assumes it does. None of them is a germ-kill claim: efficacy against a pathogen is a pesticide question handled through EPA registration and the DfE label, not through a green-cleaning standard. And a certification is granted against the edition of the standard in force at the time; standards are revised, so an old certificate reflects an old bar. All three programs re-audit or renew rather than certify once and forever.
How to read them when you are choosing for health
For a facility selecting cleaning products with occupant and worker health as the priority, a workable order of questions:
Start with the hazard question, then the lifecycle question. If the driving concern is what people breathe and touch, a mark whose method is ingredient-level review, Safer Choice, or a health-forward standard like GS-37 that names carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and CARB VOC limits, speaks most directly to it. If the concern extends to packaging, energy, and end-of-life, the lifecycle standards (GS-37, ECOLOGO) take in more of the picture.
Match the mark to the product’s job. A Safer Choice all-purpose cleaner is for cleaning; a disinfection step needs a separately chosen product, ideally one carrying DfE. Do not let a green cleaner’s mark stand in for a disinfectant claim it was never given.
Confirm the certification is current and specific. Check the product on the program’s own live directory rather than trusting a logo printed on a carton, and confirm the certified item is the exact formulation and size you are buying. Certifications are granted to products, not to brands; a brand with one certified product does not make its whole catalogue certified.
Treat the mark as the floor, not the finish. The most health-intentional operation still writes its own product list, reads each label once, fixes dilution ratios, and builds ventilation into the routine. A good certification does the chemistry screening you cannot do at the shelf. Everything after the purchase, the part that decides whether a good product is used well, is the work this site is about.
Sources
- US EPA, Safer Choice: Learn About the Safer Choice Label and Identifying Greener Cleaning Products (Safer Choice vs. DfE), epa.gov. Read 5 September 2026.
- Green Seal, GS-37, Cleaning Products for Industrial and Institutional Use, and its certification programs overview, greenseal.org. Read 5 September 2026.
- UL Solutions, UL ECOLOGO Certification for Cleaning Products (UL 2700) and the ECOLOGO Certification Program overview, ul.com. Read 5 September 2026.