8/01/03

Green Products Action Alert

Dear GPA Members,

The warm season brings a whole new world to the North Country, and on top of the usual crazy workload, Sandy and I began building a log cabin this Spring. I am sure most of you can relate to chronic overscheduling!

Just over a month ago, Gay Timmons, a broker and organic certifier, asked me to serve on a committee to recommend organic standards for Personal Care to the State of California. I jumped in with enthusiasm, though this work basically duplicates the OTA (Organic Trade Association), work that is now in progress. A month later, however, I was thrown off for refusing to drop the hydrosol issue. David Bronner was also fired from the OTA committee the same week. We have been the two loudest voices on this issue from the industry side. It turned out that Gay has a business relationship with Avalon, and refused to allow the issue to even be discussed.

For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, here is the short version:

Green Products Alliance companies have expressed a desire to distinguish themselves as having a high standard for what Natural means in personal care. The word Organic can be used to express this, if certain rules are followed. The definition of what Organic will mean in Personal Care Products is under attack by companies looking to cash in on this new market, without substantially changing their products.

National Organic Standards for Personal Care do not yet officially exist. However, there are some guidelines established based on previous food standards. A minimum 70% certified organic ingredients must be used to make a claim. The processing facility must be certified as well.

Water and salt do not count in making this calculation. This means that if I take boiling water and make a tea from organic lavender leaves, I can formulate with it, but I cannot add the mass of the water to my calculation of the percentage of organic ingredients in it.

Avalon and others, are now taking tea made from recondensed steam and using that to make the 70% claim. The other 30% is the usual mix of synthetic chemicals.

They are doing this because a certifying agency in California decided that the processing water left over from making organic essential oils (hydrosol or floral water) is also organic. To make essential oils you make steam and pass it through plant material. The steam is condensed (cooled back to water). A thin layer of essential oils floats to the top. What to do with the rest of the water?

By certifying the water, companies are using organic sounding ingredients to make themselves tons of money off the consumers seeking safe, natural, organic products. This of course puts us back to square one. We may make the best, most natural personal care products, but we must have a way to express this effectively to the people who want to buy our stuff!

Lobbying for meaningful standards for Organic Personal Care is the single most effective thing you can do to promote truly natural products. Getting your company Certified Organic is a move I encourage you to make. Organic Personal Care is the next big marketing move in the industry. It may be mainstream in 7 years. Be an early player.

Some of you have sent emails to officials before. We need to do it again. Here are the addresses for some people who need to hear your thoughts on this key issue. Let them know your position regarding hydrosols, and the importance of having meaningful Organic Standards.

The Green Products Alliance is teaming up with the Organic Consumers Association on this important issue. They have asked us to help with their email campaign.

Our contact at the OCA is ronnie@organicconsumers.org Let him know you are a natural products producer/marketer, and that you do not support the dilution of organic standards by allowing water hydrosols to be counted toward the percentage of organic ingredients in a formula.. You can send your email directly to Ron, and c/c the two people below.

The Chair of the OTA task force is Phil Margolis, whose e-mail is: phil@orgfood.com
The Executive Director of the OTA is Katharine DiMatteo, whose e-mail is: kdimatteo@ota.com

Here is the OCA petition if you want to cut and paste the wording: To sign their petition on line (please add an opening line about being in the industry and a GPA member) go to http://www.organicconsumers.org/bodycare/action.cfm

Petition To:
Organic Trade Association (OTA) and
USDA National Organic Program (NOP)

DON'T WATER DOWN ORGANIC STANDARDS FOR BODY CARE!

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WHAT'S THE PROBLEM:

Currently, various body care companies and interests are looking to gut the organic standards for body care so as to make them meaningless, pressuring the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and the USDA's National Organic Program (NOP) to codify extremely weak watered-down standards.

These companies falsely claim that "organic" floral waters are somehow key functional components of their products. Not only is the presence of these waters largely insignificant and inconsequential, their actual organic content is extremely minimal since they are almost completely water.

Nonetheless, various so-called "natural" body care manufacturers are using these waters to green-wash their products and make organic label claims, even though their formulations are in fact largely composed of the same conventional synthetic cleansers, conditioners and preservatives found in mainstream products. On the front panels of their products, these companies assert "70% organic ingredients" to mislead consumers into thinking that they are buying mostly organic products when they assuredly are not.

BODY CARE INGREDIENTS AND PRODUCTS SHOULD ONLY BE CONSIDERED ORGANIC IF:

• Certified organic agricultural raw materials are utilized exclusively, versus petroleum or conventional vegetable raw materials, in the manufacture of the key basic cleansing and conditioning ingredients.

• Manufacture of such ingredients is reasonably simple and ecological.

• The toxicity of each ingredient is minimal.

• Non-agricultural water is not counted in any shape or form as contributing to organic content. (Agricultural water is the naturally occurring water in a plant and is fine.

WHAT SHOULD BE THE STANDARD:

• Organic body care standards should mirror organic food standards, which stipulate a mandatory 70 percent minimum weight of non-water/non-salt agricultural organic content in a product for a "Made with Organic" label claim to be made on the front panel.

• Each and every proposed cleansing or conditioning ingredient should be reviewed independently and rigorously under the above criteria.

• Non-agricultural water should not be allowed to contribute to the organic weight calculation for an "organic" label claim on the front panel in any shape or form. Most body care products on the market today that make organic claims on the front label contain organic ingredients amounting to less than 5% of non-water/non-salt weight.

• Organic body care products, like organic food products, should be about sustainable agriculture, consumer and farm-worker health, and ecological processing methods, and should not be defined by a wishy-washy, watered-down set of standards that affords another marketing shtick for conventional body care products.

Thank you