SCS Global Services to Celebrate 30 Years of Sustainability Leadership

SCS Global Services, a pioneer in third-party environmental and sustainability certification, is celebrating its 30th anniversary during the month of October. For this milestone anniversary, SCS is planning a series of celebrations at Greenbuild 2014 in New Orleans to recognize long-standing clients in the green building industry.

During Greenbuild, SCS Global Series will have a 30th birthday party happy hour at its booth (No. 2439). The happy hour will be from 4 to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, October 22, and attendees can toast to the next 30 years of progress in sustainability and meet other green business leaders.

Beyond the Greenbuild party itself, SCS Global Services will preview its new comprehensive sustainability initiative for next year—Sustainability 2035: Timely Solutions for a Sustainable Planet™. It revolves around services in three areas—sustainable management systems, sustainable building assessment, and sustainable product design.

“It’s an initiative for companies who have been making progress in meeting their sustainability goals for energy efficiency, water efficiency, pollution prevention, and waste minimization, and who are now ready for the next step,” said Stanley P. Rhodes, SCS president and CEO. “It’s assuring that their investments and efforts are leading to significant, measurable environmental outcomes linked to major global and regional sustainability objectives, focused on 2035 as well as the long term.”

Rhodes said such outcomes include slowing the pace of Artic climate change, ending tropical rainforest deforestation, and shrinking the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch—all of which are critical challenges the world faces over the next 20 years.

For three decades SCS has been providing global leadership in certification, auditing, testing, and standards development, promoting transparency in green labeling and product declarations, and leading the fight against greenwashing.

“When we started out, the concept of ‘sustainability’ was barely on the radar screen for most companies,” said Linda Brown, cofounder and senior vice president at SCS. “Today it is a major paradigm being incorporated into the activities of every major corporation. SCS has been an instrumental part of this evolution, assuring transparency and accuracy of sustainability claims in the marketplace.”

Today, SCS administers over 50 certification programs, many of these serving the green building industry—including programs for furniture, flooring, and commercial interiors—as well programs in the forestry, food and agriculture, energy, and manufactured good sectors. With more than 100 employees and representatives around the globe, SCS works with companies of all sizes to assess and promote their accomplishments with ecolabels backed by scientific rigor and integrity.