Letter To Our Vendors

If this is an issue that you've yet to address, we invite you to join Green Home in our commitment to promote responsible, sustainable packaging, some of which is outlined below:

The Issue:
In the United States, as well as most other developed nations, packaging accounts for as much as one third of our non-industrial, solid waste stream. Many countries have laws that require manufacturers to take back packaging or pay for recycling but this is not the case in the U.S. Therefore, a lot of the packaging still ends up in our solid waste landfills.

Our Position:
In assessing a product's greenness, Green Home considers both product and packaging, as it's all part of what lands on our customer's doorstep. We look, for example, at the manufacturing, use and disposal options of packaging. For additional guidance, we look the Federal EPA Initiative called Extended Product Responsibility (EPR).

Our Request:
We ask our vendors to use packaging that meets any or all of the following criteria.

• Eliminates toxic ingredients
• Uses less material
• Makes it more reusable
• Uses more recycled content
• Makes it more readily recyclable

EcoFoam™ packing "peanuts" made from cornstarch expanded with water. It has soft resilient properties similar to polystyrene and is completely compostable, biodegradable and water- soluble. For more information visit www.nationalstarch.com.

If you have questions about eco-friendly packaging, please contact our Director of Certification, Marc Mowrey. He can be reached at (415) 282-6400 or at marc@greenhome.com.

Sincerely,