Global GreenTag International begins the transition to a new credit verification system

Global GreenTag's CEO and Program Director have announced together the launch of an exciting new era for Global GreenTag product certification.

Global GreenTag International CEO, David Baggs, and Program Director, Dr Nana Bortsie-Aryee, have announced the first steps towards implementing a dynamic new credit verification system for products assessed under the GreenTag standards.

The new system that will be rolled out by Global GreenTag's assessment team from now until the new year is strategic, says Dr Nana-Bortsie-Aryee.

"It has been developed to stay in alignment with the continual development of green building rating tools. It is a rigorous re-design to prevent greenwashing by making it easier for the market to select products that improve sustainability by providing verified accuracy of sustainable product claims, in alignment with and recognition by the leading green building tools."

GreenTag's CEO David Baggs explains further:

"New initiatives by the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA) have actually been a catalyst to accelerate the changes that we have been planning for some time to provide a new credits verification system for our clients and the market."

In September, GBCA informed GreenTag that it will no longer list verifiers of the Vinyl Council's BEP PVC guidelines in their list of approved initiatives, calling for certified products to now select the "Vinyl Council of Australia BEP PVC" in their score checker and calculators.

This will mean that the Best Environmental Practice PVC™ (BEPPVC™) scheme is to be removed from GBCA's list of accredited schemes and GBCA's green products database but of course, GreenTag will continue to verify products under the scheme against the Vinyl Council's Best Environmental Practice PVC Standard.

Additionally, GBCA has requested that we remove Green Star® credits or reference to the Green Star rating tools in all of our certificates and this is what we have agreed to do – along with the decision to bring forward our new system that will be shared in the coming weeks that will not only remove Green Star but all building and design scheme credits from our certificates."

David adds:

"In the name of progress, we will always remain open to embrace and navigate with changes initiated by any of our partners in the certification and regulatory fields. We are committed to cooperate with the GBCA's endeavours to move the industry forward and especially with the advent of their relatively new Green Products database, which we are pleased to add includes many of our client's products licensed with GreenTag certifications and declarations."

The first step, says Program Director Dr. Nana-Bortsie-Aryee, is to remove all listed credits from Global GreenTag's LCARate™, GreenRate™ and Best Environmental Practice PVC™ (BEPPVC™) certificates, which will be applied to new and re-certified products from now onwards."

"This change affects the certificate design, not the recognitions. GreenTag remains fully recognised by Green Star and other major building rating tools. As our recognitions grow, we no longer have space to list them all on the certificates. Instead, they will be detailed in the certification letter."

"These updates will not impact the value of any GreenTag programs. Our growing recognitions require a more intuitive and responsive system, accurately reflecting changes as they occur. Moving forward, we will continue to provide clear evidence of the credits GreenTag certifications and declarations earn for products in leading green and healthy building tools." He adds:

"We want to assure clients during this phase, that the green building tool credits, which their products will have access to under our programs, will for the interim be included in the certification completion letters that are sent out by the GreenTag product assessment team."

The announcement of the changes coming