BUILD October 2017 (Global GreenTag Pty Ltd)

8 BUILD / October 2017 , Pushing the Boundaries of Product Certification Global GreenTag is an Australian based, globally focussed certification company and one of the most advanced in the world. They are the exclusive winner of the ‘2017 Innovators in Production – Australia’ Award, after whichwe took the opportunity to interview the CEO& ProgramDirector, David Baggs to learnmore about the firm’s sustainable credentials. Global GreenTag CertTM is a formal Type 1 (Third Party) product ecolabel and rating system, comprising of two certification schemes LCARate™ and GreenRate™. Each of these schemes, or their reporting outcomes, are recognised or relevant to various international green building and infrastructure rating schemes, like Green Star®, LEED® BREEAM® International and EarthCheck®. CEO & Program Director, David Baggs starts the interview by revealing more about what Global GreenTag does, the scope of their work, not to mention their iconic brands. “GreenTag assists professionals engaged in building and interiors design, construction and operation as well as procurement, to quickly and easily select healthy and sustainable products across categories. We do this with tiered certification marks (ratings) and robust science-based product ‘nutrition-label’ like sustainability scorecards, as well as more detailed reporting outcomes in the form of both Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Product Health Declarations (PHDs). “GreenTag provides a ‘One- Stop’ certification capability for most major tools and credits. We currently certify over 1600 products for over 130 companies in more than 22 countries and are the first ecolabel in the world to implement both an LCA based ecolabel and a unique ‘Beyond LCA’ life cycle assessment (LCA) process. We were also the first company ever to provide ‘net positive’ life cycle benefit analysis (LCBA), to certify and rate green building and interior products, as well as facilitate manufacturers communication of their circular economy outcomes. “Some of the world’s most iconic brands, including Polyflor, Interface, Laminex, Tarkett and Desso, Dunlop, Knauf, Armstrong Floors and Ceilings, Vertilux, Verosol, Herman Miller and Forbo, Waterford Carpets, DuPont, Amorim, Assa Abloy, Bunzl, Markant, Nora and Kingspan are backed by Global GreenTag certification and reporting. These are recognised directly or compliant with, green project rating schemes in use in over 162 countries including Australia, New Zealand, US, UK, EU, China, India, Malaysia, South Africa and SE Asia.” David then provides some additional background to the company, including why it was set up in 2010 and what the GreenTag standards set out to achieve. “Global GreenTag was established in 2010 to bring to the world market a new scientifically based holistic, sustainability focused certification standard and ecolabel that would continually extend the boundaries of product certification and support the global challenge of protecting and regenerating natural systems and resources, beyond the typical binary ‘pass/fail’ Type 1 ecolabels predominating in the market, at that time. “The GreenTag standards were developed to provide a higher level of scientific support, transparency and quality endorsement for exemplar, sustainability focused manufacturers (planet heroes in the eyes of GreenTag) who are dedicated to green production methods and share GreenTag’s principals and mission to protect natural systems and resources, while connecting their products to green projects and markets looking for trusted, third party certified product information. “Ultimately, we aim to set those exemplar products, apart from ‘Business as Usual’ products that still flood markets around the world. These BaU products often make unsubstantiated environmental claims, that, per a Canadian UL Terra Choice study some years ago, showed 95% of products claiming to be ‘green’ make some level of false claims using ‘greenwash’ to convince purchasers through vague, misleading or deceptive marketing.” The founding directors of Global GreenTag, David Baggs and Mary- Lou Kelly first started tackling and laying the groundwork for the emergence of GreenTag, as far back as 2003 with a company called Ecospecifier (since renamed Ecospecifier Global). Ecospecifier grew out of David’s years of then 30 plus years of experience, as a multi award- winning green building architect, renowned materials, energy and sustainability consultant, for the Sydney 2000 green Olympics among many others. As CEO and Programme Director of Global GreenTag, David has transformed the programme with a team of toxicologists, materials and environmental scientists and industry advisory and expert committees, to successfully create new benchmarks in green product certification. David then furnishes us with the details of the firm’s unique reporting process, in his own words. 1708BU01