RESOURCES FOR SAFER ALTERNATIVES

Several organizations currently certify safer manufacturing cleaning products and accepted substances as well as provide evaluation of formulations 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.

*NEW* To support the electronics sector in seeking safer alternatives, CEPN is pleased to present a newly published Guide to Safer Alternatives in Electronics Manufacturing. This guide was developed in partnership with IPC to increase knowledge and enhance resource sharing for stakeholders throughout the supply chain.

CEPN has also created a single hub of up-to-date lists from organizations certifying safer manufacturing cleaning products and accepted substances and providing evaluation of formulations for the electronics industry:

Certified products and accepted substances

The following includes information about selected assessment schemes and evaluators of formulations.

Note that this information is not an endorsement from CEPN. If your organization is interested in being listed on this page, please reach out to info@cleanelectronicsproduction.org.

Certified Products

Greenscreen Certified™ for Cleaners & Degreasers in Manufacturing

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.

Chemical suppliers interested in getting products certified can contact certifications@cleanproduction.org.

GreenScreen Certifed™ Cleaners & Degreasers

Safer Choice

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.

Companies interested in certifying products should go to the Safer Choice website for more information.

SCIVERA SAFER CHEMISTRY—ELECTRONICS CLEANERS AND DEGREASERS

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.

Chemical suppliers or users of cleaning/degreasing chemicals interested in finding out more about Scivera Safer Chemistry product achievement and certification can contact info@scivera.com.

ToxFMD Screened Chemistry® Certified Electronics Manufacturing Cleaning Products

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.

For more information on ToxFMD Screened Chemistry® services, contact Kristi Benoy, ToxFMD Program Manager kbenoy@toxservices.com.

ToxFMD Certified Cleaning Products

Accepted Substances

TCO Certified Accepted Substances — Cleaning Ingredients

TCO Development has added process chemicals used as cleaning solvents to TCO Certified Accepted Substance list. The list covering process chemicals presently 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.

For information on adding chemicals to the TCO Certified Accepted Substance List for process chemicals, contact Stephen Fuller, Senior criteria manager at TCO Development.

TCO Certified Accepted Substance List

Formulation Evaluation

ChemForward

ChemFORWARD is a leader in creating broad access to chemical hazard assessments and safer alternatives. Free Formulation Ingredient Intelligence Reports (FIIRs) are available to formulators of cleaners and degreasers to quickly screen and optimize their formulations as a first step toward certification.

ChemFORWARD leverages a shared, globally harmonized repository of chemical hazard assessments (CHAs), to quickly and cost-effectively provide a comprehensive screening of a formulation and provides access to identify verified safer alternatives by function.

The process is strategically designed to help formulators, brands, and manufacturers stay ahead of regulations, ensure human and environmental safety, and build trust through third-party verified transparency.

ChemFORWARD also maintains a registry for verified safer cleaner & degreasers – ChemWorks.

ChemWorks Registry

SUMMARY OF LISTED ASSESSMENT SCHEMES FOR SAFER MANUFACTURING CLEANERS & DEGREASERS