All AP Inds. furniture lines now GreenGuard certified

Heath E. Combs -- Kids Today, 10/23/2012 10:56:35 AM

Case goods manufacturer AP Inds. has finished an eight-month process of certifying its adult and youth product lines to the GreenGuard Indoor Air Quality standard.

While other furniture companies have had their youth lines certified to the standard, AP Inds. is the first North American manufacturer to have both its youth and adult lines certified, said Ken Loh, vice president of sales.

The certification program was started by the GreenGuard Environmental Institute, an independent nonprofit group that specializes in improving indoor air quality.

The standards address chemical emissions of consumer products. They target the off-gassing of chemical and particle emissions, testing for more than 10,000 volatile organic compounds in products, including core material in panels, Loh said.

On its commercial manufacturing side, the company received GreenGuard certification last year, Loh said. The company immediately began seeing an impact there, he said, for projects that use standards for buildings like the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

Loh said the certification process should be a plus for the company's adult and youth business and it plans to begin promoting GreenGuard more heavily in upcoming months.

"It will for sure impact our juvenile business and certainly our adult," Loh said.

The certification process has required retraining for finishes, a process that took several months, he said.

"We've very well known for our finish. It was important to train them well to be consistent with our finish," Loh said. "Not only is the child's bedroom a healthy environment but the adult's room is a healthier one now, too."