ACI Urges Congress To Support EPA Safer Choice Program

The American Cleaning Institute (ACI) signed on to a letter expressing strong support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Safer Choice Program.

ACI is one of 90 signatories that came together, representing brands, chemical manufacturers, governments, non-governmental organizations and retailers.

In the letter, the coalition asks Congress to “provide funding at a level that allows the program to be fully staffed and resourced.”

The letter also highlights how companies across the value chain utilize the Safer Choice brand to advance their individual safer chemical initiatives, for example:

- Chemical manufacturers have invested in developing safer chemicals now listed on the Safer Choice’s Safer Chemicals Ingredients List (SCIL), which allows these manufacturers to offer safer chemicals to the market that carry the robust third-party verification of the EPA.

- Brand owners and product manufacturers have invested in Safer Choice by reformulating products to obtain Safer Choice certification.

- Major retailers specify the Safer Choice label as a way to verifiably meet corporate goals laid out in public-facing chemicals policies.

In 2020, the American Cleaning Institute became the first non-manufacturer organization to successfully submit cleaning product ingredients for inclusion in the SCIL.

The Safer Choice Program also provides value to entities outside of the supply chain:

- States and municipalities rely on Safer Choice because it is the only third-party program that requires all ingredients to be screened for hazards instead of simply using a restricted substances list.

- Non-governmental organizations and consumers find significant value in an authoritative government program that can be trusted to vet safer chemicals and products.

Read the letter in full here.