Label Lookup: Intro

You are in a store, considering what to buy and you see a claim on a product -- maybe your cleaning product bears the Green Seal label, or a claim on the carton says the eggs are "Animal Welfare Approved." What's it mean? Is it backed up by good standards? Can you trust it? Check it out on Label Lookup on this web site or in our updated iPhone app, available here. We've researched roughly 200 different claims that can be found on product labels and gathered what we learned into this tool so that you can make informed product choices.

We've even rated the claims, using a zero-to-four "leaf rating" scheme:

or four leaves is the highest rating;
or zero leaves is the lowest and means the label has no meaning and is not reliable.

How our rating works

A claim is rated based on whether and how it meets the following conditions:

• It addresses multiple issues, such as its impact on the environment, health, worker safety, etc, or just one.
• It is based on meaningful standards that are consistent and clear among different products.
• The organization behind it makes available to the public information about organizational structure, funding, oversight bodies and the standards upon which the claim is being made.
• The certification standards upon which it is based are developed via an open and consensus based process, meaning there was multi-stakeholder input.
• It is verified by an independent third party, meaning the organization deciding who can use a label or claim has no ties to or receive funds beyond fees for certification from the sale of certified products.

4 leaves is the highest rating, 0 is the lowest and means the label has no meaning and is not reliable.

We don't claim this rating scheme is perfect. Without an oversight organization that establishes standards for the use of claims, there is wide variability across and within product categories. There is also imperfect information about all the claims in our database. But we dug deeply with the help of two terrific online databases -- EcoLabel Index and Greener Choices -- and a number of government web sites as well as other web resources, and pulled together the most reliable, objective information we could find on each label.

Common terms

Third-party certification verifies that a product, process or service meets defined, industry-independent criteria or standards, including verification and review by an impartial agent operating independently of both the standards body and the manufacturer or producer.

Second-party verification is performed by a person or organization that has a user interest in the products (e.g. traders, retailers or consumers and their organizations.

First-party declaration is a claim of adherence to a standard or set of criteria made by a manufacturer or other producer on behalf of its own products.

Product, service, and company categories are evaluated using a life-cycle approach to ensure that all significant environmental and social impacts are considered in the development of a standard, from raw materials extraction through manufacturing to use and disposal. Such an evaluation involves thorough, state-of-the-art scientific evaluations using internationally accepted methodologies.

ISO stands for International Standards Organization.