LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Conventional and Green

Seal-Compliant Industrial and Institutional Cleaning Products
Amit Kapur, Cheryl Baldwina , Mary Swanson, Nana Wilberforce, Giovanna
McClenachan, Mark Rentschler
Abstract
Purpose: The goal of this study was to assess the environmental impacts of industrial and institutional cleaning
products that are compliant with the Green Seal standard, GS-37, and conventional products (non-GS-37-compliant)
products.
Methods: The scope of the study was cradle-to-grave, to encompass the energy and material resources required for
the production of raw material and packaging components to use and final disposal of the cleaning product. The
generic functional unit for this study was annual cleaning of 100,000 sq ft of office space. The ReCiPe 2008
Midpoint (hierarchist perspective) impact assessment methodology was used including the following impact
categories: climate change, ozone depletion, photochemical oxidant formation, particulate matter formation, human
toxicity, terrestrial acidification, freshwater eutrophication, freshwater ecotoxicity, agricultural land occupation,
natural land transformation, water depletion, and fossil depletion. General purpose, glass, and restroom cleaning
products were included in the study. The GS-37-compliant, conventional concentrate, and conventional ready-to-use
versions of each cleaner were evaluated in the study.
Results and Discussion: The conventional ready-to-use industrial and institutional cleaning product had the highest
environmental impact in all product types and most impact categories analyzed. The GS-37-compliant products
were lower than the conventional products in most impact categories studied. Further, normalization of the results
showed that the impact categories of marine ecotoxicity, human toxicity, and freshwater ecotoxicity were dominant
with the conventional products leading these impact categories. The packaging and distribution stages were
dominant for the conventional products, whereas the product formulation contributed significantly to overall impacts
for GS-37-compliant products. The GS-37 standard addresses packaging and distribution, but could further address
the formulation issues.
Conclusions: The comparative life cycle assessment performed in this study showed that the Green Seal Standard
for Industrial and Institutional Cleaners, GS-37, identifies products with notably lower environmental impact
compared to typical alternatives in the market. This reduced impact was a result of the requirements in the Green
Seal standard that addressed the leading sources of the impacts (namely packaging, transportation) and are not
included in any other standard or recognition program in North America.

Keywords Green Seal LCA Green Ecolabel Environmentally Preferable Standard Institutional Cleaning
Products Environmental Impact GS-37
a

Cheryl Baldwin PhD

Green Seal,
1001 Connecticut Ave, NW, 20036 DC, USA
email: standards@greenseal.org
fax: 1-202-872-4324

Introduction
Green Seal is a non-profit organization in North America that has over 30 leadership standards available to
guide development of more sustainable products and for use in certification to help consumers and purchasers
identify environmentally preferable products and services. The Green Seal Standard for Industrial and Institutional
(I&I) Cleaners, GS-37 (Green Seal 2009), is the most recognized in government green cleaning programs (ISSA
2009). This standard covers routine cleaning products such as hard surface cleaners (floor, glass, and restroom),
toilet and urinal claeners, and carpet cleaners. I&I green cleaning products are cost competitive to conventional
options (Espinoza, Geiger and Everson, 2010). So the potential market impact of products that are GS-37-compliant
is significant especially considering that routine I&I cleaners are the second largest cleaning products category in the
marketplace after household detergents (Ahmed 2009) and constitute 32% of the $10.8 billion I&I market (Branna
2008).
There have been only a few studies, such as USEPA (2002) and Koehler and Wildboz (2009), to evaluate
life cycle environmental impacts associated with cleaning products. The USEPA (2002) study focused on I&I
cleaning products and identified which raw material ingredient and life cycle stage contributed to significant impacts
for each product. Koehler and Wildboz (2009) analyzed household cleaning products and concluded that production
of chemicals and consumer use were major drivers of environmental impacts. This study evaluates the
environmental profiles of I&I cleaning products that meet the Green Seal GS-37 standard, as well as those that
cannot; or more conventional products.

Goal and scope definition

Goal
The goal of this study was to assess the environmental impacts of GS-37-compliant and conventional
products (non GS-37-compliant) products. It is anticipated that results of the study will provide guidance on
environmental hot spots for these products and further guide Green Seals program in establishing a framework and
benchmarks for environmentally preferable I&I cleaning products.
Scope
The scope of the study was cradle-to-grave which encompassed the energy and material resources
required for the production of raw material and packaging ingredients and through to consumer use and final

disposal of the cleaning product. The boundaries of this study, the life cycle phases and elements of the cleaning
product included and excluded, are summarized in Table 1.
Table 1 System boundaries

Included
Production of raw material ingredients
Production of primary packaging materials
Transportation of finished product
Consumer use of product
Wastewater treatment
Recycling and landfill disposal of primary
packaging

Excluded
Production of cleaning product
Secondary and tertiary packaging
Fragrances and dyes
Transportation of raw materials
Cleaning equipment and maintenance
Consumer use of water for cleaning

General-purpose cleaning products were the focus of this study since they represent a significant proportion of
the cleaning product market and Green Seal-certified (to GS-37) products. Two different general purpose formula
bases were used for the GS-37-compliant products including a glucoside-based formula and a hydrogen peroxidebased formula to represent the two primary formula chemistries in the market. Glass and restroom cleaning
products were also studied to note any differences across product categories and product chemistries. The results of
these products will be discussed, but not detailed.
The GS-37 standard and its criteria were used to develop the model products for these categories. The criteria
that were modeled in this study included: concentration, packaging, and some of the human health and
environmental fate requirements. The GS-37 standard requires cleaning products to be sold at minimum
concentration levels aimed to reduce packaging, manufacturing, and transportation of the product, whereas
conventional products are available in concentrated and ready-to-use (RTU) forms. Therefore, for conventional
products, both types of formulations are included in this study. GS-37 has a number of requirements that limit the
use of materials that are hazardous to human health and the environment that end up excluding commonly used
chemicals in conventional products. Therefore, the formulations of the products in the study differ due to this.
There are other requirements in GS-37 that differentiate compliant products from conventional products that were
not included in this study. For example, GS-37 requires the use of cold/unheated water for product
performance/use, whereas conventional concentrated products often require heated water. The heating of water can
be a significant source of impacts (Koehler and Wildboz 2009), but this was not included in this study due to the
range of water use and temperatures of heated water. GS-37 does not allow for the use of ingredients that are
asthmagens, a growing concern for cleaning products, but there is not a means to model this kind of end-point in life

cycle assessment. There are additional considerations included in GS-37 that were not included. This study was
limited to the requirements in GS-37 that has available data and could be modeled using the life cycle assessment
methodology.
Function and functional unit
The primary function of the cleaning products included in this study is to clean soil and dirt in an
institutional/office space environment. The plausible secondary functions of these products such as disinfection or
polish were excluded from this study.
The generic functional unit for this study was annual cleaning of 100,000 sq ft of office space (50% hard
floor area and 50% carpeted area). The amount of cleaning product needed to clean the office space is represented
by the reference flow for each product type, summarized in Table 2 and is from the Green Cleaning Pollution
Prevention Calculator (USEPA 2011). The Green Cleaning Pollution Prevention Calculator for the default
functional unit stated above provides annual consumption of various types of I&I cleaners such as floor, carpet,
glass, restroom, general-purpose, etc.,
Table 2 Reference flow for each product
Product
General- purpose
Glass
Hydrogen peroxide
Restroom

Reference flow (kg/year)

79.5
88.1
79.5
109.0

Temporal coverage
The composition profiles of conventional and GS-37-compliant products represent contemporary products
available in the North American market. The LCI data on product ingredients, packaging materials, electricity grid,
fuels, and end-of-life management of packaging materials represent the time period from 2003 to present.
Geographical and technological coverage
The composition of the I&I cleaning products, their manufacturing, and the environmental impacts are
representative of the current technological mix of the products sold in the North American market.
Life cycle impact assessment(LCIA) methodology

For the purposes of this study, ReCiPe 2008 Midpoint (Hierarchist perspective) impact assessment
methodology was used (Goedkoop et al. 2009). The following impact categories were studied:

Climate change
Ozone depletion
Human toxicity
Photochemical oxidant formation
Terrestrial acidification
Freshwater eutrophication

Freshwater ecotoxicity
Agricultural land occupation
Natural land transformation
Water depletion
Fossil depletion

The characterization factors and normalization/weighting values for the world for ReCiPe Midpoint
methodology available in SimaPro 7 LCA software (PR Consultants) were used. In addition, the results for the
cumulative energy demand are also presented. The methodology for estimation of cumulative energy demand (CED)
was based on Frischknecht et al,(2007).
Cut-off criteria
In this study, if the flow was less than 1% of the cumulative mass of all inputs and outputs of the LCI
model, it may have been excluded, provided its environmental relevance was not of concern. The sum of neglected
flows shall not exceed 5% of cumulative mass.
Allocation
The allocation procedures for recycling of packaging materials, as per the ISO 14044 (ISO, 2006), were
applied in this study. An open loop approach with no changes in inherent properties of the recycled material was
considered for recycling of packaging materials. As a consequence, system expansion and substitution methods were
applicable, as per ISO 14044 (ISO, 2006). The product system boundary was expanded to include end-of-life
recycling, whereby use of primary or virgin materials was substituted by use of secondary or recycled materials. In
addition, the environmental burdens associated with recycling were also included.
LCA software and database
The LCA model for each product was created using the SimaPro 7 software (current version 7.2.4)
developed by PR Consultants (PR Consultants). The databases contained in the SimaPro software provided the
LCI data for product ingredients, process and packaging materials, electricity grid, and fuels.
Critical review

The results of the study were provided to an independent expert panel for critical review, simultaneous to
the review and publication. The panel consisted of the following members: Jim Darr (USEPA) and Weslynne
Ashton (Illinois Institute of Technology).
Life cycle inventory
Product formulation
In this study, no primary data on formulation of cleaning products was collected from product
manufacturers or suppliers. The formulations were based on Green Seals extensive research on the market sector.
The formulations were not based on any particular product, but were designed to be an aggregate of products.. For
the GS-37-compliant general-purpose cleaning products, two different formula chemistries were studied since the
market research suggested these two main paths, glucoside-based and hydrogen peroxide-based. For conventional
concentrate products, the representative formulation was estimated based upon publicly available data and reference
literature (Ahmed 2009; Flick 2006). The formulations for the conventional RTU products were estimated by
diluting the conventional concentrate product with the appropriate dilution factor. In the baseline scenario, it was
assumed the water content in the product formulation was tap water. The formulation data for GS-37-compliant1 and
conventional products are provided in Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, and Table 6, respectively. The formulas were
designed to be model formulas, examples, and any resemblance to a specific product is a coincidence. The life cycle
inventory (LCI) data for formulation ingredients was selected from the Ecoinvent v 2.2 database2 available in the
SimaPro software. In a case when the Ecoinvent LCI data was a unit process data, the dataset was modified for
North American energy boundary conditions. This was achieved by replacing the European electricity and fuels
inputs with North American electricity and fuels datasets. The 1% cutoff criterion was applied while customizing the
Ecoinvent datasets. If no LCI data was available for a particular ingredient, proxy datasets were used. In some cases
the proxy dataset of an ingredient was created based upon the stoichiometry of the chemical synthesis to produce the
ingredient, provided the LCI datasets for the reactants was available. The selection of the proxy LCI dataset was
also done on the basis of similar functional performance, to use an alternate ingredient. The LCI datasets for each
cleaning ingredient are provided in Online Resource 1.
Manufacturing

1
2

Also referred to as compliant product

http://www.ecoinvent.org/database/ (Accessed 25th January, 2011)

The GS-37-compliant products were concentrated more (see Use section that follows) due to the minimum
product concentration criterion in GS-37. As a result, it is anticipated that the manufacturing inputs would be
greater for the amount of conventional products used for cleaning the same functional unit. However, no data was
collected from compliant and conventional product manufacturers on manufacturing, so this was this not included in
this study.
Table 3 Composition of multi-purpose cleaner
Compliant
Ingredient
Alcohol ethoxylate
Alkyl polyglucoside
Anionic surfactant
Sodium citrate
Water

Conventional
Weight (%)
5-18
0-15
1-5
0-5
rest

Ingredient
Alkylphenol ethoxylate
Ethylene glycol butyl ether
Sodium carbonate
Sodium hydroxide
Water

Weight (%)
5-15
0-5
0-5
0-5
rest

Table 4 Composition of hydrogen peroxide cleaner

Ingredient
Alcohol ethoxylate
Hydrogen peroxide
Sodium xylene sulfonate
Water

Weight (%)
7-13
1-5
0-5
rest

Table 5 Composition of glass cleaner

Compliant
Ingredient
Diethylene glycol ethyl ether
Ethyl alcohol
Lauryl glucoside
Sodium lauryl sulfate
Sodium xylene sulfonate
Water

Weight (%)
2-5
0.1-1.5
5-10
1-5
5-10
rest

Conventional
Ingredient
Alcohol ethoxylate
Alkylphenol ethoxylate
Ethylene glycol butyl ether
Isopropyl alcohol
Sodium lauryl sulfate
Water

Weight (%)
2
2
0.15-5
10
2
Rest

Table 6 Composition of restroom cleaner

Compliant
Ingredient
Alcohol ethoxylate
Citric acid
Diethylene glycol butyl ether
Lauryl glucoside
Water

Packaging

Conventional
Weight (%)
1-5
1-5
5-10
1-5
rest

Ingredient
Ethoxylated phenol
Hypochlorite bleach
Phosphoric acid
Sodium carbonate
Water

Weight (%)
0-5
0-5
0.5-10
0-2
rest

The packaging containers considered for the compliant and conventional products were 1 gallon container 3
and 32 oz. spray bottle4, respectively. The primary packaging material for each cleaning product was virgin high
density polyethylene (HDPE). The packaging information was based upon Green Seal standard development and
certification data; and was assumed to be same for conventional products. The HDPE LCI data was Plastics Europe
inventory data available through the Ecoinvent database. The packaging LCI data was available as a system process
data; therefore, it could not be customized for North American energy boundary conditions.
Distribution
In the baseline scenario, it was assumed that the finished product gets transported a total distance of 1600
km. This was roughly estimated to represent the distance from a cleaning product manufacturing facility in the
Midwest region of the United States to a final point of use on the East Coast of United States. A diesel-powered
combination truck LCI dataset from USLCI database available in SimaPro was used for modeling the distribution
stage.
Use
In the baseline scenario, the compliant products were diluted using tap water. The tap water LCI data from
Ecoinvent was modified for North American energy boundary conditions. The dilution factors for each compliant
product type were as follows:

General-purpose and Hydrogen peroxide 1:32

Glass and Restroom 1:16

In the baseline scenario, it was assumed that the dilution ratio of a conventional product was less than the GS-37
requirement (based on market surveys conducting during the development of the concentration criterion included in
GS-37). While many conventional products are available in RTU format, the following dilution factors for each
conventional product type were used to provide a more conservative evaluation (it is worth noting that at the time of
this study, the GS-37 standard was the only standard in the United States that required minimum concentration
levels):

3
4

General-purpose and Hydrogen peroxide 1:16

Glass and Restroom 1:8

Weight = 120 grams

Weight = 65 grams

The use of wipes for glass cleaners, and use of cleaning mops and dilution equipment was excluded from this
study. GS-37 has additional requirements that affect the use phase of the life cycle, but were not included in the
study. For example, GS-37 requires that the product perform with unheated tap water, whereas conventional
products typically use heated tap water. This was not included in the study due to data and modeling limitations.
User health considerations such as exposure to asthmagens, sensitizers, and other hazards were also not included in
the study (due to method limitations).
End-of-life
The end-of-life LCI data for HDPE recycling was based upon work conducted by Franklin Associates
(2010). The recycling rate of 17% for HDPE was based upon Franklin Associates (2010) and USEPA (2010). The
amount of packaging material not recycled was assumed to be disposed in a landfill. The Ecoinvent LCI data on
disposal of polyethylene in sanitary landfill was considered in the LCA model. The environmental impacts
associated with discharge and treatment of wastewater were done under the assumption that wastewater generated as
a result of cleaning (except for glass cleaners) undergoes significant dilution after it is discharged into a combined
sewer. As a result, the quality of wastewater to be treated from cleaning product use can be considered to be of
similar quality as the urban wastewater. The Ecoinvent LCI data on moderately large wastewater treatment for
capacity class 2 (representative of 71100 per capita equivalents) was used to model the environmental impacts
associated with wastewater treatment.
Data quality
The formulation data for compliant products can be considered to be of very good to excellent quality, as it
is based on actual data of certified products. However, for conventional concentrate products, the data quality can be
considered to be of good to very good quality since it was based on publically available information. The Ecoinvent
database can be considered to be the most current, comprehensive, accurate and transparent source of LCI data
which is publicly available and the data quality can be considered of excellent quality.

Results and discussion

Life cycle impact assessment
General-purpose and hydrogen peroxide

The LCIA of the multi-purpose and hydrogen peroxide cleaners are shown in Table 7. The product with the
highest environmental impact for most of the categories studied was the conventional RTU product. The hydrogen
peroxide-based GS-37-compliant cleaner did not have the highest impact for any of the categories studied and had
the lowest environmental burden of all of the products studied in most impact categories except for climate change,
ozone depletion, natural land transformation, and fossil depletion. For the glucoside-based GS-37ompliant product,
the ozone depletion, terrestrial ecotoxicity, agricultural land occupation and natural land transformation impacts
were higher than the other products. This is due to the use of fatty alcohol from coconut oil and palm kernel oil in
lauryl glucoside ingredient in the compliant general-purpose cleaner (Refer Online Resource 2). The conventional
concentrate was higher than all other products studied for fossil depletion. This is due to the use of petroleum-based
ethoxylate and HDPE packaging. Both the GS-37-compliant products (glucoside-based and hydrogen peroxidebased) were lower than the conventional products in most impact categories.

Table 7 Life cycle impact assessment results of general-purpose cleaning products (the results in bold text represent
the product that had the highest impact for that category and the results in italicized text represent the product that
had the lowest impact for that category).
Impact category

Unit

GlucosideBased
Compliant
1.96E+00

Hydrogen
Peroxide-Based
Compliant
1.99E+00

Conventional
RTU

Conventional
Concentrate

Climate change

kg CO2 eq

2.55E+00

7.40E-08

2.24E+01
8.93E-08

Ozone depletion

kg CFC-11 eq
kg 1,4-DB eq

9.24E-08
6.29E-01

Human toxicity
Photochemical oxidant formation

kg NMVOC

9.83E-03

5.09E-01

8.59E+00

9.05E-01

8.80E-03

1.32E-01

1.17E-02

Particulate matter formation

kg PM10 eq

3.26E-03

2.49E-03

3.31E-02

3.88E-03

Ionising radiation

kg U235 eq

1.58E-01

1.28E-01

3.33E-01

2.15E-01

Terrestrial acidification

kg SO2 eq

9.70E-03

7.99E-03

9.55E-02

1.23E-02

Freshwater eutrophication

kg P eq

4.22E-04

3.33E-04

1.08E-03

7.75E-04

Marine eutrophication

kg N eq

6.26E-03

3.79E-03

5.40E-03

Terrestrial ecotoxicity

kg 1,4-DB eq

9.65E-05

Freshwater ecotoxicity

kg 1,4-DB eq

9.73E-03
1.51E-02

4.48E-02
2.47E-04

1.13E-02

3.32E-01

2.12E-02

Marine ecotoxicity

kg 1,4-DB eq

1.29E-02

1.11E-02

2.03E-02

ma

7.56E-01

1.64E-02

3.26E-01
2.90E-02

ma

1.16E-02

6.54E-03

4.45E-02

2.61E-02

6.51E-03

Agricultural land occupation

Urban land occupation
Natural land transformation

Water depletion

1.18E-01

Metal depletion

kg Fe eq

Fossil depletion

kg oil eq

1.61E-04

-2.04E-05

6.35E-08

1.46E-04

2.26E-02
1.35E-04

9.58E-02

1.51E-01

1.36E-01

8.64E-02

6.88E-02

9.78E-01

1.01E+00

9.89E-02
1.21E+01

1.42E+00

7.82E-02

The LCIA results of the glass and restroom cleaners indicated a similar trend as the general-purpose cleaner; the
conventional RTU product had a higher environmental burden in most impact categories except for higher land use
impacts for the compliant product (Refer Online Resource 3 and Online Resource 4). However, the compliant glass
cleaner had higher water depletion impacts, driven by water use during irrigation of palm fruits. The compliant
restroom cleaner did not indicate any appreciable difference in the trend.
The cumulative energy demand results for all cleaners are illustrated and discussed in Online Resource 5.
The CED for the conventional RTU product was an order of magnitude higher than compliant and conventional
concentrated products. The ratio of renewable energy portion of CED to total CED was higher for compliant
products on account of the higher use of bio-based ingredients in these products compared to the conventional
products.
Contribution by life cycle stage

The breakdown of LCIA results by life cycle stage for the compliant and conventional RTU generalpurpose cleaners are shown in Fig. 1 and

Fig. 2, respectively. The contribution from the product formulation for the compliant product dominated
most of the impact categories except for water depletion where water used for dilution was significantly higher than
water used in product formulation. In the case of the conventional RTU product, the contribution from packaging
and distribution was dominant in categories such as climate change, fossil depletion, and cumulative energy demand
whereas contribution from product formulation was dominant in categories such as ozone depletion, land use, and
water depletion. The breakdown of LCIA results by life cycle stage for glass and restroom cleaners is shown in
Online Resource 3 and Online Resource 4, respectively. The results indicated a similar trend as the general-purpose
cleaner - the product formulation stage dominated the source of impacts in these impacts for the compliant product
whereas the end-of-life (EoL) packaging stage dominated for the RTU product.

The breakdown of normalized LCIA results by life cycle stage for compliant and conventional RTU
general-purpose cleaner are shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4, respectively. For each product the impact categories of
marine ecotoxicity, human toxicity, and freshwater ecotoxicity were dominant. These leading impact categories
were highest in Table 3 for the conventional products.

Sensitivity analysis
The life cycle impact assessment results for compliant products were dominated by product formulation
whereas for conventional RTU products, the distribution of the finished product and primary packaging of the
cleaner contributed significantly to the overall impacts. The influence of variations in these dominant parameters as
illustrated through additional sensitivity analysis.
Finished product transport

The contribution to environmental impacts from transportation of the finished product was significant for
the conventional RTU product. In the baseline scenario, it was assumed that finished product gets transported 1600
km from the point of manufacturing to its point of use destination. So, the distance was reduced to 160 km in a
sensitivity analysis (see the results in Table 8). The reduction in impacts was greater for the conventional RTU
product than the compliant product. The reduction in impacts was most significant in categories such as climate
change, photochemical oxidant formation, and particulate matter formation. This directly correlated to reduction in
fuel use (i.e., diesel). The results for glass and restroom cleaners are shown in Online Resource 3 and Online
Resource 4, respectively and the results do not deviate from general-purpose cleaner results.
Table 8 Changes in life cycle impact assessment results from general-purpose cleaner baseline scenario (finished
product distance reduced to 160 km)
Impact category

Climate change

Glucoside Conventional
Based
RTU
Compliant
-16.9%
-47.4%

Ozone depletion

1.0%

-0.4%

Human toxicity

-26.9%

-63.0%

Photochemical oxidant formation

-25.2%

-60.1%

Particulate matter formation

-18.6%

-58.7%

0.0%

0.0%

-17.2%

-56.0%

0.0%

0.0%

-13.5%

-60.6%

Ionising radiation
Terrestrial acidification
Freshwater eutrophication
Marine eutrophication
Terrestrial ecotoxicity

0.0%

-5.0%

Freshwater ecotoxicity

-7.3%

-10.5%

Marine ecotoxicity

-8.8%

-11.1%

Agricultural land occupation

0.0%

0.0%

Urban land occupation

0.0%

0.0%

Natural land transformation

0.0%

0.0%

Water depletion

0.0%

0.0%

Metal depletion

0.0%

0.0%

Fossil depletion

-11.0%

-28.3%

Non-renewable energy

-10.2%

-27.0%

Renewable energy

0.00%

0.00%

Bio-based ingredients

The contribution to overall life cycle impacts from the product formulation for compliant products was
substantial. Some of the ingredients such as surfactants in cleaning products can be derived from both petrochemical
and bio-based or renewable feedstocks. The objective of this sensitivity analysis was to quantify and compare the
environmental profile of a general-purpose compliant product formulation with a greater amount of bio-based
ingredients as compared to the baseline scenario formulation. In this analysis, the ethoxylated alcohol (AE7) from
petrochemical source was replaced with ethoxylated alcohol (AE7) from coconut oil. The results are shown in
Table 9. The increase in land use impact is substantial (more than 100%) whereas the reduction in impacts for other
categories is marginal. The renewable energy portion of cumulative energy demand also increases by 10% whereas
the non-renewable portion declines by 14%. A similar analysis for the compliant glass and restroom cleaner is
shown in Online Resource 3 and Online Resource 4, respectively. Along a similar line of study, when the
conventional formula contained bio-based ingredients (as compared to the based scenario of being made from
petrochemical-based ingredients) the land use impacts also increased. This increase ended up resulting in the
conventional product overtaking the compliant product in all impact categories except one.
Table 9 Changes in life cycle impact assessment results from compliant general-purpose cleaner baseline scenario
(higher number of bio-based ingredients)
Impact category

Compliant

Climate change

-5.4%

Ozone depletion

-1.6%

Human toxicity

0.6%

Photochemical oxidant formation

-5.1%

Particulate matter formation

1.4%

Ionising radiation

1.7%

Terrestrial acidification

-0.9%

Freshwater eutrophication

0.5%

Marine eutrophication

7.8%

Terrestrial ecotoxicity

0.0%

Freshwater ecotoxicity

0.2%

Marine ecotoxicity
Agricultural land occupation
Urban land occupation
Natural land transformation

0.7%
146.1%
0.8%
238.8%

Water depletion

-0.1%

Metal depletion

0.4%

Fossil depletion

-14.3%

Non-renewable energy

-13.5%

Renewable energy

10.0%

Conclusions
This comparative life cycle assessment study demonstrated that general-purpose cleaning products and
other types of cleaning products (i.e., glass and restroom) compliant to the Green Seal Standard for Industrial and
Institutional Cleaners, GS-37, had substantially lower environmental impacts than typical alternatives in the market,
conventional cleaning products. This was driven by the criteria in the GS-37 standard that require products to be
highly concentrated and to meet a comprehensive set of health and environmental criteria for the product
formulation. The criteria are unique to Green Seals program, since no other standard or related programs in North
America have such requirements (e.g., minimum product concentration). The complaint products had lower impacts
across most of the impact categories studied, with the hydrogen peroxide-based product having the lowest impacts.
With normalization it was found that the leading impact categories of marine ecotoxicity, human toxicity, and
freshwater ecotoxicity were highest with the conventional products. The primary packaging and transportation of
finished product were the major contributors to the impacts from conventional products, especially the ready-to-use
product. Thus, efforts to reduce packaging and transportation are important considerations to reduce overall
impacts. The GS-37 standard includes criteria to address these issues (e.g., minimum product concentration
requirements). However, the product formulation was the major contributor to environmental impacts for complaint
products. Much of this was driven by the use of bio-based ingredients. This, in addition to further optimizing the
other considerations in the study, represent potential areas for future development in the GS-37 standard.
The criteria from GS-37 that were included in this study represent a subset of the criteria included in the
GS-37 standard. The additional requirements in GS-37 are expected to lead to further reductions in the
environmental impact of compliant products. These include minimum product performance thresholds, use of
unheated water, health hazards, and through to environmental fate.

For example, over-use of products from being

low performers and heating water for cleaning are expected to substantially contribute to the overall impact of the
products. In addition, the GS-37 standard requires health and environmental thresholds be met such as acute
toxicity (high LD50) , no carcinogens or reproductive toxins, no asthmagen ingredients, and limits for skin and eye
irritation and skin sensitization, among others, that cannot be evaluated using LCA.

The LCA study provided guidance on the effectiveness of some of the criteria in the GS-37 standard as
well as additional areas to further optimize. However, LCA had limitations in assessing how the set of criteria in the
standard work to identify preferable products. Additional research would be required to provide that insight.
However, this study confirmed that the Green Seal Standard for Industrial and Institutional Cleaners, GS-37, is
uniquely positioned to serve as an effective framework for the development and identification of more sustainable
I&I cleaning products.

Electronic supplementary material

Online Resource 1 LCI dataset for each chemical ingredient
Online Resource 2 Drivers for environmental impacts
Online Resource 3 Results for glass cleaners
Online Resource 4 Results for restroom cleaners
Online Resource 5 Cumulative energy demand results for all cleaners

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Fig. 1 Breakdown of life cycle impact assessment results by life cycle stage for compliant
general-purpose cleaner

Fig. 2 Breakdown of life cycle impact assessment results by life cycle stage for RTU general-purpose
cleaner

Fig. 3 Breakdown of normalized life cycle impact assessment results by life cycle stage for compliant
general-purpose cleaner

Fig. 4 Breakdown of normalized life cycle impact assessment results by life cycle stage for RTU generalpurpose cleaner