Whole Foods First to Rate Its Cleaners

Whole Foods Market is the first national retailer to develop a rating system for all cleaning products it sells, based on environmental and sourcing standards. Photo: Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market is developing a tiered rating system for the household cleaning products it sells, making it the first retailer in the nation to adopt such an evaluation system.

The color-coded Eco-Scale Rating System will rank products – red, orange, yellow or green – based on a set of environmental and sourcing standards. The system will evaluate both Whole Foods’ store-brand cleaning products and products from outside vendors.

Products will be required at a minimum to meet the Eco-Scale’s baseline orange standard by Earth Day 2012. Products rated red do not meet Eco-Scale standards and will not be sold at Whole Foods. A green rating represents the highest, most eco-friendly ranking.

Several cleaning products have already been evaluated: 14 of Whole Foods’ store-brand cleaning products, as well as a total of 34 products from brands Better for Life, Ecover, Greenshield and Method.

SEE: Handbook on Eco-Friendly Household Cleaners

An independent third party is auditing the cleaning products to ensure compliance with the Eco-Scale Rating System.

There is currently no law mandating full disclosure of cleaning product ingredients, but all cleaning products sold at Whole Foods will be required to list every single ingredient on product packaging to meet the new system of standards.