Did you look at Shaklee's green cleaning product(s)? Specifically, Basic H2, which is 40 years old and was the first featured product on the first Earth Day?
Besides being environmentally safe, one bottle dilutes into over 200 bottles of all purpose cleaner. That's a lot less bottles going into the landfill, which many of the other cleaners can't say that they're doing.

But really, all companies, cleaning, building, etc, are all going to have to step up in their responsibility in providing more sustainable products.

http://www.sowing4health.com

Green Seal is the third party standard for green cleaning. It verifies the product is people, children and pet friendly.
Go to any vendor that sells Green Seal Certified products for references.
http://greenseal.org/

There is a new line up entering the retail space that isn't a greenwashed version of an existing product. Look for Got Green Kits www.gotgreenkits.com out of Atlanta. The products are packaged as a kit, so they all work together - no ammonia/blech/chemical reactions, and the kit is designed sustainable from top to bottom. ISO certification for production of the caddy, Green Seal for the products, lightweighting for the containers, and concentrated so you aren't buying water weight, or extra bottles, or transportation costs, etc.

The kit comes bundled with microfiber towels and a cleaning guide. In green cleaning, half of what is green is the product, the other half is the method (behavioral component). The HomClean is a year supply. Read up on their product on the site. www.gotgreenkits.com

Marc Stoiber said:

Michelle said: A few comments and questions. First, can you please provide some references that show that the green cleaning products actually work and clean well. I've been checking out cleaners on Good Guide but there is no info on whether the product actually works. Second, I do believe in 3rd party certification but there are some issues with it that I think the certification industry should address. I have to say that these are problems I've heard about - I have not experienced them first hand or deeply researched them. The certification can be very expensive-. This makes it difficult for smaller companies to get into the business. Every formulation change,no matter how minor or still using a "good" ingredient requires another expensive certification. Finally, there is an inherent conflict of interest in the maker of the product paying for the certification. If you have any insights into how green industries are dealing with these issues, I'd appreciate it. Thanks

Michelle, my references to the efficacy of green cleaners is entirely anecdotal. That is, I've used them and they work. To your second point, certification can be expensive, but small companies can use complete transparency about ingredients and ongoing consumer dialogue to show their integrity. It's not an eco-logo, but it can go a long way to reassuring consumers. To your final point, I don't see a problem with certifiers taking money. NGO's need to eat, and they're pretty clear about paying for their services, not to 'buy' them. NGO's biggest brand asset is their integrity - I don't think they'd be too keen on compromising that. Thanks for the great input. Hope my thoughts helped. Cheers, Marc Stoiber

I don't see a problem with people charging for their work either. But I think there needs to be an acknowledgment of the inherent conflict of interest and some creative thinking of how to deal with it. This is an issue for any kind of certification, not just those for green products. Here is an example, totally unrelated to green, that illustrates the issue. In California, electronic voting systems have to be certified to meet CA standards by independent, 3rd party certifiers. But they are paid for by the companies trying to get the systems certified. There had been evidence of certifiers passing equipment that had not met federal and state standards. Some labs were actually de-certified themselves - i.e. not allowed to do any testing.  No idea if they were paid off or not. I'm sure they weren't keen on compromising their integrity, but they did so. So now the voting system companies put up the money to certify but the State chooses the actual lab to do the testing. 

In the case of getting a 3rd party cert from a specific group, there is no choice of labs. I don't know that there is a simple way to deal with this. As much as everyone has good intentions, where there is money, there is motive, there needs to be checks to prevent problems.  It could be one individual, not a company as a whole.  I don't know enough about the operations of companies such as Green Seal - perhaps they have some outside party audit their findings??? Trust but verify....

Here's one reality about green cleaning...it's the commercial cleaning companies that are pushing real solutions here. And I got this from the Head of Sustainability from a national janitorial company (yes, ponder THAT for a second!). First, they tend to employ people who tend to like to sue them. Sad, but the minimum wage earners have the occasional bright idea to make a claim that the chemicals they use are toxic and they need to go on disability. Second, most major buildings are owned by major corporations or REITS, and these cleaning companies never want a claim by a tenant or a building owner that anything that they used in the cleaning of the building caused a work place claim. Having a documented and verifiable green cleaning program is the BEST defense in court. The guy I met had been working with all their suppliers to green all their products - for those reasons + it's great PR, and BTW just a really good idea. Their buying power gave him access to the ear of their suppliers, so we all win. I was amazed and impressed.

So is Shaklee really green? Or is it also guilty of greenwashing? How can you be sure?