Businesses Unite Behind EPA’s Safer Choice Program
Safer Choice Sign-On

To: Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

CC: Deputy Assistant Administrator, Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Director, Office of Management and Budget

Subject: Businesses Unite Behind EPA’s Safer Choice Program

We, the undersigned businesses, organizations and investors, are writing to you to convey our united support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Safer Choice program.

As a voluntary partnership program, Safer Choice works collaboratively with the business community to move safer products and chemicals into the marketplace, creating an incentive for ongoing innovation.

Over 400 businesses count on the Safer Choice program and use its criteria to signal to consumers, commercial buyers, and government purchasers that products meet performance standards and are made with safer ingredients. The Safer Choice label on products reassures consumers who are increasingly concerned about ingredient safety. The label also helps U.S. companies win business in global markets. Nearly 2,000 Safer Choice-certified products are currently available, with partner companies selling products across North America, Europe, and China.¹ Businesses utilizing the Safer Choice program find the labeling program an efficient, effective, and trusted means of communicating with consumers and facilities seeking safer products.²

Additionally, the government has adopted the Safer Choice program as a requirement in purchasing criteria. Most recently, the fiscal year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which had bipartisan support, contained a requirement for the Department of Defense to purchase Safer Choice-certified cleaning products, to the maximum extent possible.³ The General Services Administration custodial specification also requires contractors to use cleaners certified to eco-labels, including Safer Choice.⁴ Further, states across the country have environmentally preferable purchasing requirements that ensure all cleaners, carpet, and floor care products on state contracts are certified by a recognized third-party certification such as Safer Choice. Accordingly, businesses increasingly rely on Safer Choice to gain government procurement contracts.

The Safer Choice program also supports the U.S. manufacturing industry, with a total production volume of 2.4 billion pounds of Safer Choice-certified products in 2024, representing a 150% growth since 2021.⁵ These products include laundry detergent, floor care, and dish and dishwasher soap which are essential to enabling people to live healthier and cleaner lives. Almost all of the Safer Choice-certified products are manufactured by U.S.-based companies – either headquartered in the U.S. or with a manufacturing site in the U.S. Some states, such as Colorado, produce nearly 700 million pounds of Safer Choice-certified products each year.

Another key advantage of the Safer Choice program is that it offers a scientifically robust, positive approach to safer chemistry, complementing federal, state, and retailer efforts to enhance product safety. For many businesses, a federal program such as Safer Choice that helps companies identify safer alternatives to use in their products is preferable to a patchwork of chemical restriction-based logo programs at the state or retail level. Imagine trying to formulate products to avoid the substances listed in the criteria for dozens of different programs with no guidance on what to use instead; this is extremely costly and burdensome for businesses.

A fifth advantage of the Safer Choice program is that it strikes a balance between protecting confidential business information and public disclosure. Industry must be confident that the trade secrets that make its products innovative, safe and effective are not undercut by poor-quality counterfeit products that do not effectively do the job, that can cost companies their reputation and significant financial resources, and most likely will lead to lost jobs. Safer Choice supports more rigor in product claims while protecting valuable trade secrets.

The organizations and companies below are all strong supporters of the EPA Safer Choice program. Some have participated in the rigorous application process and received approval to place the logo on their product labels, produce/sell ingredients on the Safer Choice Program’s Safer Chemical Ingredient List (SCIL), or are retailers, investors and others that see the value of the program as part of their sustainability program.

The breadth of the industries represented by the signatories to this letter clearly highlights the widespread industry belief in the value and benefits associated with displaying the Safer Choice logo on a product label.

We believe that the Safer Choice program provides a unique value-added service to support product innovation while maintaining high standards for performance, health, and safety. This program is a good example of the business community working with the government to drive positive outcomes in the marketplace.

Sincerely,

¹https://www.epa.gov/saferchoice/products
²See, for example, https://www.cloroxpro.com/resource-center/2024-clean-index/
³H.R.5009 – 118th Congress (2023-2024): the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, H.R.5009, 118th Cong. (2023), https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/5009
⁴FAR 23.108 – Required Environmental Protection Agency purchasing programs, https://www.acquisition.gov/far/part-23
⁵https://www.epa.gov/saferchoice/safer-choice-performance-measures