Best Indoor Air Quality & Low-Emissions Certifications

UL GREENGUARD Gold certification

UL Solutions

The strictest indoor air quality emissions certification for building materials and furnishings. GREENGUARD Gold meets California Department of Public Health (CDPH) standards and is required by many school, healthcare, and LEED v4 projects. The de facto benchmark for low-emissions specifications.

UL GREENGUARD certification

UL Solutions

UL's baseline emissions certification — broader product coverage than GREENGUARD Gold, with strict but less stringent VOC, formaldehyde, and aldehyde limits. Suitable when GREENGUARD Gold isn't required but emissions documentation is.

FloorScore

SCS Global Services

SCS Global Services' indoor air quality certification specifically for hard surface flooring (resilient, laminate, engineered wood, etc.). The most widely recognized flooring emissions standard in North America and a commonly required spec for LEED, WELL, and CHPS projects.

SCS Indoor Air Quality Gold

SCS Global Services

SCS's emissions certification for furniture, finishes, and other interior products. Tests against the CDPH v1.2 standard and recognized for LEED v4.1 EQ credit compliance. A direct alternative to GREENGUARD Gold for products SCS already audits for other attributes.

Declare Label

International Living Future Institute

Not strictly an emissions certification, but a transparency label that discloses every ingredient in a building product — including Red List chemicals that contribute to poor indoor air. Required for Living Building Challenge projects and increasingly specified for WELL projects.

Health product declaration collaborative

Health product declaration collaborative

An open standard for reporting the chemical contents and health hazards of building products. HPDs are the disclosure complement to emissions certifications — useful when you need full transparency on what's in a product, not just what comes out of it.

C2C Certified Material Health Certificate™

Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute Inc

Evaluates the chemical composition of building products to ensure they are safe for human health. A standalone certificate from the Cradle to Cradle framework focused purely on material safety, including indoor air quality implications of off-gassing.

EPD

EDP International AB

Environmental Product Declarations provide standardized, third-party verified data on a product's environmental impact across its lifecycle — including emissions during use. While not solely an IAQ certification, EPDs often include IAQ-relevant data and are required for LEED v4 Materials & Resources credits.