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.
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 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, good or bad, that wholly or partially results from industrial/manufacturing activities, products or services.
EPA – United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal regulatory body charges 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.
MBDC – McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry; environmental consultants that developed the Cradle-to-Cradle protocol to assess human and ecological impacts of chemicals and materials.
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 Samson Carts’ parent company ICB, LLC.
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™.
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.