Naturepedic Joins The Chemical Footprint Project

Furniture World News Desk on 12/13/2014

A group of corporate and NGO leaders released a new tool for assessing leadership in corporate chemicals management. The Chemical Footprint Project (CFP) provides the first-ever common metric of its kind for publicly benchmarking corporate chemicals management and profiling leadership companies.

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” said Dr. Mark Rossi, Co-Director of the nonprofit Clean Production Action and Chair and Founder of BizNGO, who released the Chemical Footprint Project today with the Lowell Center for Sustainable Production and Pure Strategies. “The CFP finally establishes a meaningful measurement of overall corporate performance to safer chemicals in products and supply chains. We look forward to engaging business leaders in tracking and disclosing their Chemical Footprints.”

Naturepedic founder Barry Cik served on the steering committee along with representations from several other health care organizations, retailers and manufacturers including Hewlett-Packard Company, Kaiser Permanente, Seagate Technology, Seventh Generation, Staples, Target, and more.

“CFP provides the definitive tool for measuring overall corporate chemical management performance,” noted Barry Cik of Naturepedic. “We look forward to its widespread use in the furnishings sector where a credible, third party benchmarking of chemical performance is missing, yet needed.”

From health care to retail, purchasers are seeking products made with inherently safer chemicals. Now these purchasers will have a tool to quickly compare and benchmark suppliers. Similar to Carbon Footprinting, Chemical Footprinting can apply to any business sector. Retailers, health care organizations, governments, and investors all see value in a comprehensive measure of business progress to safer chemicals. The CFP will enable purchasers to preferentially select suppliers and investors to integrate chemical risk into their sustainability analyses and investments. The CFP results enable brands to market their progress and success in using safer chemicals.

The CFP is the first initiative to publicly measure overall corporate chemicals management performance
by evaluating:

• Management Strategy
• Chemical Inventory
• Progress Measurement
• Public Disclosure

ABOUT THE CHEMICAL FOOTPRINT PROJECT:  The Chemical Footprint Project was founded by the environmental non-profit Clean Production Action, the research institute The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and the sustainability consultancy Pure Strategies. It’s mission is to transform global chemical use by measuring and disclosing data on business progress to safer chemicals.

The CFP aims to:

• Establish a common metric for assessing progress to inherently safer chemicals,
• Bring transparency to chemicals management practices, and
• Benchmark company performance.

For more information about the Chemical Footprint Project, see www.chemicalfootprint.org.

ABOUT NATUREPEDIC: Naturepedic, based in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, was founded by environmental engineer Barry A. Cik. Naturepedic specializes in the design and manufacturing of certified organic mattresses for infants, children and adults that promote natural and organic materials, a non-toxic design, and overall health and safety.

For more information about Naturepedic organic mattresses, visit www.naturepedic.com.