Guiding Principles

The first guiding principle is the Precautionary Principle. San Francisco was the first city to adopt the Precautionary Principle. The Precautionary Principle requires that if an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.

The second guiding principle is Green Chemistry policy. There are 85,000 chemicals approved for market use today, but fewer than 10 percent of them have been tested for human health impacts. The average American carries at least 100 of these chemicals in her or his body, but there is next to no research on the impacts of a lifetime of exposure to this mix of chemicals. Green Chemistry begins to address this by determining how and which chemicals can be introduced and used in products, including household products. 

The third guiding principle is Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). EPR is a mandatory type of product stewardship, which requires that manufacturers be responsible for a product and its packaging after a consumer has used the product.  This includes shifting financial and management responsibility away from government and providing incentives to producers of products to incorporate environmental considerations into the design of their products and packaging.