Green
Glossary of Terms
Air Quality Testing
– Third party testing programs for low emitting products and materials.
Testing certifies that chemical and particle emissions meet acceptable
Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) pollutant guidelines and standards. One accepted
authority is
GREENGUARD®
CO2
– Carbon Dioxide, a chemical compound composed of one carbon and two oxygen
atoms. Carbon dioxide absorbs many infrared wavelengths of the sun's light.
Cradle-to-Cradle
– A design protocol developed by MBDC that promotes the elimination
of waste by recycling a material or product into a new or similar product at
the end of its intended life, rather than disposing of it. At the end of
their useful life, all materials become either a biological or technical
nutrient.
DfE
– Design for Environment, efforts to assess, and through informal design
minimize, a product's negative human and environmental health impacts.
DfD
– Design for Disassembly, design that allows a product’s materials to be
easily separated for recycling and reuse, to minimize a product's negative
human and environmental health impacts.
Ecosystem
– The interacting system of a biological community and its non-living
environmental surroundings.
Environmental Impact
– Any change to the environment, that in some way is a result from a
specific species or event. In our case it is usually
industrial/manufacturing activities, products or services.
EPA
– United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal regulatory body
charged with protecting human health and with safeguarding the natural
environment.
GHG
– Greenhouse
Gas; gaseous components of the atmosphere that contribute to the “greenhouse
effect” i.e. absorbs infra red radiation in the atmosphere.
Green Power
(a.k.a. Renewable Energy)
– Energy derived from natural sources that replenish themselves over short
periods of time. These resources include the sun, wind, moving water,
organic plant and waste material (biomass), and the earth’s heat
(geothermal).
Greenhouse
Effect
– Atmospheric heating caused by solar radiation being readily transmitted
inward through the earth’s atmosphere but long wave radiation less readily
transmitted outward, due to absorption by certain gases in the atmosphere.
GREENGUARD®
– The GREENGUARD
Certification ProgramSM is an independent, third-party testing
program for low-emitting products and materials. To qualify for
certification, products and materials are regularly tested to ensure that
their chemical and particle emissions meet acceptable indoor air quality
(IAQ) pollutant guidelines and standards. GREENGUARD Certification is a
voluntary program available to all manufacturers and their suppliers.
Source:
www.greenguard.org. Samson Carts products are listed on this
site.
LEED®
– Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design; a certification program
administered by the U.S. Green Building Council to recognize leadership in
environmental design for commercial and residential construction and
renovation.
Source:
www.usgbc.org.
MBDC
– McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry; environmental consultants that
developed the Cradle-to-Cradle protocol to assess human and ecological
impacts of chemicals and materials.
Source:
www.mbdc.com.
Social Accountability
Institute -
Social Accountability International (SAI)’s mission is to promote human
rights for workers around the world. The SA 8000 standard has been adopted
by CrateXpress’ parent company ICB, LLC.
Source:
http://www.sa-intl.org.
USGBC
– U.S. Green
Building Council; the nation’s foremost coalition of leaders from across the
building industry working to promote buildings that are environmentally
responsible and profitable, and healthy places to live and work. The USGBC
administers the LEED® Green Building Rating System™.
Source:
www.usgbc.org.
VOC
– Volatile
Organic Compounds; encompass a variety of chemicals, some of which may have
short- and long-term adverse health effects. Concentrations of many VOCs are
consistently higher indoors (up to ten times) than outdoors because they are
found in materials commonly used indoors such as paints, cleaning supplies,
building materials and office equipment including copiers, printers,
correction fluids and permanent markers.
Source:
www.epa.gov.
