Non-Toxic Product Certifications: How The Values Movement Empowers You

The countless news stories about toxic chemicals in our environment can get mind-numbing. Sure, we’d like to know if there’s anything harmful in the products we put into, and onto, our bodies. But learning what to look out for, and making sure of the safety of the products we use, can almost feel like a full-time job.

Non-toxic Certifiers

Organizations such as MADE SAFE®, Environmental Working Group, and NSF (a global health and safety organization) have created non-toxicity standards for consumer products. They certify items ranging from health and beauty products and dietary supplements to appliances and plumbing components.

These are positive steps, but simply placing a label on a product doesn’t get us where we need to be. How do we know what these certifications really mean? Who is behind them? And can we trust that they mean what they say?

The Values Movement can both improve and simplify the ways we can keep harmful products away from ourselves and our families. Read on to find out how.

Our Shared Values

The best way we can know if a certification is trustworthy is to be a part of it.

More precisely: to be part of a community that shares the values behind a certification and actively vets it.

Our values are bound up in many aspects of our lives. Our values are tied to qualities like valuing honesty, or valuing our culture, or a sense of right and wrong. We might also value things like: Is this product safe for children? Or: I value the environment such that I don’t want products to release chemicals harmful to wildlife. In this same way, “toxicity” can refer to how we value reducing toxicity in the things we consume and the places we live.

That’s where the Values Movement comes in. Its members recognize that we need an economy based not just on profits, but on values as well. So Values Movement members are able to validate various certifications that apply to all manner of products and services. This increases trust in products and in certifications, which in turn boosts the credibility of Certifiers.

The Values Movement enhances the work done by organizations like MADE SAFE® by positioning it at the very beginning of your research and purchase journey, so you don’t see ads for products that don’t match your values — thus making your values a top priority rather than an afterthought.

How It Works

The Values Movement’s web app provides transparent descriptions of all certifications, so Members can know exactly what is being certified and how. By strengthening and raising confidence in certifications, it relieves consumers of the need to search websites for safe products, look up the nature of chemical ingredients, explore what different certifications mean, or scan product labels for certification logos.

The Values Movement does this by uniting ethically motivated consumers into a powerful buying group. Each user has a Personal Values Filter unique to them and reflecting the certifications that matter to them. Unique to the Values Movement, these active, participatory, crowd-verified certifications filter the content you see, blocking content that doesn’t match your values (or companies that don’t) — empowering your values in the marketplace.

Businesses benefit by being able to see the potential market size for each certification, and can adjust their products and practices to reach the largest target audience.

So with Values Movement certifications, you can know that if a company says a product is “made safe,” it means it — and you won’t have to make detoxifying your life your full-time job.

Join the Values Movement to build a global movement of people and businesses committed to values-driven profit instead of profit-driven values.