In new years.

In new years, environmental concerns have become more and more important for stakeholders to consider when building just discovered facilities, as well as when maintaining their popular ones. Using environmentally sound yields and services is significant not barely for the long-term health of our planet if it were not that for the long-term health of our population--perhaps none more for a like reason than long-term care residents, who because of their circumstances generally squander the vast majority of their time inside the facility, and are therefore profoundly affected from their surroundings.

united of the most significant organizations at work in the field today is fresh Seal, Inc., a nonprofit arrange that specializes in promoting the purchase and production of environmentally responsible returnss and services, many of which are used in the LTC field. Nursing Homes/Long spell Care Management Assistant Editor Todd Hutlock freshly spoke with Green Seal President and CEO Arthur Weissman, PhD about produce certification, the importance of being disquieted with environmental matters, and the potential validitys on human health and wellness.

Can you provide a brief history of and background onward Green Seal, Inc.?

Dr Weissman: We were instituteed 15 years ago. I've been with the organization since 1993 starting as vice-president of certification, and I became president and CEO at the period of 1996. Our mission is to improve the environment by means of focusing on the products and services in the economy and trying to make them more environmentally responsible or sustainable. We are single of the first organizations that focused onward making the economy more sustainable and thereby helping to improve the environment that way. Our flagship program is to appoint leadership environmental standards for various effect and service categories, and to certify outcomes and services that meet those high leadership-level standards.

We were originally rested with an eye on the consumer market, and we fix in the United States that was rather a challenge and it required brand recognition. Our seal is in import a brand; it is actually a registered certification mark with the U Patent and Trademark Office, however to use it in the consumer adjoining matter would be like introducing a brand. However, we knew it would require a great deal of resources and effort to achieve that type of brand recognition in the consumer market. in such a manner we switched to a more institutional focus in metes of the products and services that we focus in succession and the associated manufacturers and service providers. Along with that, we started working with one large institutional purchasers as a way of leveraging the market toward fresh products and services. We started working with the federal direction as well as state and local managements and with nongovernmental institutions of the like kind as the World Bank and universities.

We also have worked with various industry sectors above the years, targeting specific industries that we want to work with. For instance, we've done a fate of work with the lodging industry--hotels, motel and such--because it is really a microcosm of all adumbrations of buildings and facilities and, like nursing hearthstones they bring all sorts of different proceedss and services into a single location.

What exactly does undecayed Seal certification mean?

Dr Weissman: This is something that is same important to explain clearly because the certification and the seal that describes it go on product labels and advertisements and the like, and by the agency of federal law, those things have to be true clear. The Federal Trade Commission has remarkably strict guidelines on what kinds of claims are made about productions particularly in the environmental marketing area.

That said, virid Seal certification means that a crops or service meets the applicable environmental standards that we have place These standards are available either forward our Web site or by way of contacting us directly, and they contain explicit criteria. We are trying to fix standards at leadership levels for a consequence or service in the existing and emerging market, in the way that that the products or services that we certify are those that have the best environmental performance of all similar performances or services in the market. That general [i]or[/i] abstract notion of a leadership level is key-note Certification is not exclusive--a number of productions in the same category can be fresh Seal certified, meaning that they all have met the standard. However, not many fruits will be certified overall because they are leadership standards--meaning solely the cream of the harvest will qualify. Maybe 15 to 20% of the proceedss might be eligible to be certified. If we started to view a much higher percentage than that being certified, that would mean we didn't establish the standards high enough or they now have to be revised.

What are a certain quantity of basic criteria and standards, and to what degree are they developed?

Dr Weissman: Our criteria are plant on the basis of extensive technical and scientific evaluation of the production in terms of the life period of that product. The life period of a product is the entire history, if you will, of a product's unfolding manufacturing, use, and end of life. Typically, we're talking about the raw materials that are extracted from the earth and then procedureed in manufacturing to make the produce Next, there is the transportation of the yield to the user, followed through the actual use of the production and the impact of this forward the environment and human health. Finally, there is the end-of-life stage, i.e., what happens when the fruits can no longer be used: Can it be recycl reused, or refurbished, or is it simply disposed of? Each of these stages has a different power on the environment and human health, and each produce category essentially has its hold life-cycle environmental profile.