All the SONETT products are, since July 27, 2005 controlled and certified according to two quality standards.

The label ECO GARANTIE for Sonett
is the brand name for those washing and cleaning products which fulfil the criteria set by the belgian certificating institute PROBILA UNITRAB and which are controlled once a year by ECOCERT Belgium. Consumers, certification institutes as well as manufacturers of ecological washing and cleaning products were involved in the development of this quality standard.

In addition to the general quality standard of ECO GARANTIE, an independent control office has checked all the SONETT products according to the SONETT own criteria.

The label EcoControl for Sonett
Is the brand name of the certification and control institute PreCert, Consulting & Audits, Dr J. Banzhaf, D-72829 Engstingen. The label EcoControl is herewith proof for the controlled SONETT quality.
The criteria for this certification are published on the SONETT Homepage.

Why bother for a certification?
Originally, a regulation in the European law has foreseen a certification to ecological standards only for food products. Independent and recognized inspection offices make sure that the stan-dards set by the EU bio-regulation are well respected, example according to the criteria of the german Bio-Label or of the Demeter, Bioland, etc...

Such a bio-regulation does not exist for cosmetics, washing and cleaning products. Only the general reglementations are here valid. It is exactly in this domain that it is extremely difficult to place a judgement on the ecological quality of the product:

For cosmetics
the law requires a -almost- complete list of the ingredients (INCI). However, the names of these in-gredients are only words that remain unknown to the consumers, unless they have enough knowled-ge in chemistry to understand them.

For washing and cleaning products
the law requires only the declaration of certain ingredients by their characteristic names as "colo-rants, enzymes, anionic-, non-anionic or cationic surfactants". This means that, even with enough chemical knowledge, one cannot recognise the real ingredients of the product.

Since a few years, the European Label For Environment - the E in the flower- is applied to some washing and cleaning products. However and contrary to a general opinion, this label is not an Eco-certificate but is mainly the prof that the product washes and cleans efficiently thanks to its conventional ingredients including optical brighteners, enzymes, etc...However, since ecological washing and cleaning products cannot be evaluated with these kinds of ingredients, this label does not say anything about the ecological nature of the product.

The Eco-certification of a recognized institute as for example the "controlled natural cosmetics of BDHI" or the EcoGarantie Certificate of the belgian certification institute PROBILA UNITRAB can give to the consu-mers the assurance that certain harmful ingredients are not included in the product.

Therefore, the label EcoGarantie guarantees that:

• no enzymes produced from genetically modified micro-organisms are included in the Sonett wash and cleaning products.

The SONETT quality standard goes much further than the criteria of the EcoGarantie.

We use:

• no enzymes whatsoever in Sonett Eco Friendly Cleaning products.

• no petro-chemical or part-petro-chemical surfactants in Sonett.

• no petro-chemical or part-petro-chemical conservation agents; we use as conservation agent exclusively pure plant alcohol which is free of petro-chemical additives in Sonett.

• exclusively pure vegetable soaps made of oils from certified organically grown plants for Sonett.

• exclusively essential oils pure at 85-90% of certified organically grown plants.  This quality is guaranteed by the EcoControl label.

Furthermore, Sonett plan to gather our particular quality signs in an audited paper and to include them in the EcoControl certification - for example:

• rhythmised additives for washing product.

• energetizing of water.

• social standards.

• formation of co-workers.

• neutralization of capital.

• foundation SONETT.

SONETT 2005

>>See Sonett Eco Friendly Household Cleaning Products>>>

For more information about Sonett:

http://www.sonett-online.de/1eng/certifi.htm

http://www.dwi.gov.uk/consumer/faq/hardness.htm

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/Products/Toxics/chemicalhouse