Safer Alternatives
Resources for Safer Alternatives
Several assessment schemes currently certify safer manufacturing cleaning products and accepted substances to assist the electronics industry in finding and selecting safer alternatives. This information is provided to assist both companies and facilities in the electronics supply chain in finding safer alternatives, and chemical suppliers in certifying their products.
CEPN is providing a single hub of up-to-date lists from organizations certifying safer manufacturing cleaning products and accepted substances for the electronics industry:
Chemical Assessment Certification Organizations
The following includes information about selected assessment schemes. A single hub of up-to-date lists from the organizations certifying safer manufacturing cleaning products and accepted substances for the electronics industry is also available.
Note that this information is not an endorsement from CEPN. If your assessment scheme is interested in being listed on this page, please reach out to info@cleanelectronicsproduction.org.
Certified products and accepted substances
GreenScreen Certified™ for Cleaners and Degreasers
Chemical suppliers interested in getting products certified can contact certifications@cleanproduction.org.
Clean Production Action recently released GreenScreen Certified,™ for Cleaners & Degreasers in Manufacturing to promote safer chemical use and innovation in the electronics sector and beyond. The certification was developed with Apple who for years has used GreenScreen® for Safer Chemicals to assess and promote safer chemicals in their supply chain.
GreenScreen Certified provides criteria for assessing the safety of cleaners with three levels of certification: Silver, Gold, and Platinum. All levels require manufacturers to disclose all intentionally added chemicals in the products; avoid over 2,000 known chemicals of high concern and defined chemical classes listed in the Restricted Substances List; meet skin and eye irritation requirements; and perform analytic testing for substances of particular concern.
See the GreenScreen list of certified cleaners and degreasers.
Safer Choice
Companies interested in certifying products should go to the Safer Choice website for more information.
U.S. EPA Safer Choice certifies products with safer chemical ingredients that meet the Safer Choice Standard. Safer Choice evaluates all ingredients, regardless of percentage, against stringent human health and environmental criteria. Only those chemicals that are the safest in their functional class are allowed. A list of chemicals that meet Safer Choice criteria are available on EPA’s Safer Chemical Ingredients List (SCIL). Safer Choice has been certifying primarily commercial and retail cleaning products for more than 15 years.
Safer Choice and our third-party qualified profilers can help companies evaluate and improve their formulations to meet the Safer Choice criteria.
Scivera Safer Chemistry —Electronics Cleaners and Degreasers
Chemical suppliers or users of cleaning/degreasing chemicals can find out more about Scivera Safer Chemistry by contacting info@scivera.com.
SciveraLENS® is a web-based software platform that enables screening, scoring, and certification of electronic cleaning and degreasing chemicals for the electronics supply chain.
Subscribers to SciveraLENS® gain access to Scivera toxicologists and over 4,000 Verified Chemical Hazard Assessments for insight on sustainable chemistry and safer alternative ingredients for restricted substances or other chemicals of concern.
SciveraLENS® currently provides safer / sustainable chemistry achievement for products categories including toys, apparel, footwear, cosmetics, among others and will soon include an electronics cleaners and degreasers category.
TCO Certified Accepted Substance List
To add chemicals to the Accepted Substance List for process chemicals, contact Stephen Fuller, Senior Criteria Manager at TCO Development.
TCO Development has added process chemicals used as cleaning solvents to TCO Certified Accepted Substance list. The list covering process chemicals includes cleaning ingredients independently assessed by licensed GreenScreen profilers.
TCO Development also accepts cleaning products that have been independently assessed to GreenScreen Certified™ to be added to the list.
ToxFMD Screened Chemistry®
For more information on ToxFMD Screened Chemistry® services, contact Kristi Benoy, ToxFMD Program Manager kbenoy@toxservices.com.
ToxFMD Screened Chemistry® evaluates chemical formulations in multiple product sectors, allowing brands and their suppliers to easily identify safer alternatives. A ToxFMD® assessment (which stands for full materials disclosure) includes a comprehensive hazard evaluation of chemicals in a formulation. Cleaning product formulations are also assessed for compliance with region-specific VOC standards, such Chinese VOC standards for cleaning agents.
ToxFMD Screened Chemistry® was created in 2014 to serve the textile and apparel industries and expanded in 2020 to assess cleaning products in the electronics sector.