Comfort at work

At Zenbooth, our mission is to make work comfortable.

For many Zenbooth customers, our booths are an important part of the workplace, and if you’re anything like our team, you might be spending hours inside of a booth over the course of a day. That’s why over the years, we’ve made several improvements to our booths in an effort to make them more comfortable: dozens of iterations on our ventilation to keep you cool, the addition of an electric adjustable desk to improve ergonomics for all users, and countless others features.

Recently, we heard from our customers that there was one comfort feature that they were particularly interested in: air quality, and more specifically, the emission of volatile organic compounds (or VOCs) inside the booths. Being able to breathe is comfort; knowing that the air you’re breathing is safe is necessary.  As soon as we learned of this concern, we got to work figuring out how to credibly confirm what we already knew to be an inherently safe product.¹

We’re proud to announce that, as of this year, all Zenbooth products have earned an Intertek Clean Air GOLD certification, the highest distinction in Intertek’s Clean Air program.

Why does it matter?

Volatile organic compounds (or VOCs) are emitted from a large variety of synthetic materials used in the construction of building and furniture products. The vaporizing, or off-gassing, of these materials causes chemicals to release into the air and can have harmful short-term and long-term effects on the health of users. These emissions can even have immediate negative health effects, such as eye and respiratory irritation, headaches, dizziness, nausea, or allergic skin reactions, and can sometimes result in even worse long-term effects.

By choosing products with an Intertek Clean Air GOLD certification for your workplace, you’re choosing to improve the quality of your indoor environment and the health of your employees.  Your choice reflects a dedication to establishing an environmentally-friendly, safe, and ultimately, comfortable place for your team.

So, what exactly is Intertek's Clean Air certification program and what does Intertek Clean Air GOLD entail? 

Intertek, a leading Total Quality Assurance provider to industries worldwide, performs VOC/indoor air quality testing services for their Clean Air program, as part of their Sustainability Certification division. The Clean Air program independently tests and certifies products to regulated sustainability initiatives including, but not limited to, BIFMA e3, California CDPH, LEED, and WELL.

Earlier this year, we worked with Intertek’s compliance experts & scientists to test samples of our booths for their VOC emission levels in their globally-recognized ISO 17025 accredited labs, and were pleased to learn that our products exceeded the threshold for the Clean Air GOLD certification.

Clean Air Gold means more than just low VOC emissions. The certification includes:

• USGBC LEEDS EQ Low-Emitting Materials credits & WELL credits
• Conformance to ANSI/ BIFMA e3 standard credits 7.6.1, 7.6.2 and/or credit 7.6.3
• Conformance to California Department of Public Health’s (CDPH) Special Environmental Requirements, Standard Method v1.2 01350 (2017)
• Conformance to the California Department of General Service’s (DGS) Indoor Air Quality Specifications for Open Panel Office Furniture

The Intertek Clean Air GOLD certification meets the same BIFMA & CDPH standards as UL’s GreenGuard Gold certification, and exceeds the BIFMA standards of the standard UL GreenGuard certification. 

We hope that this Intertek Clean Air GOLD certification helps you and your team feel more comfortable in the workplace.  As always, we will continue to do our job to provide you with the safest, most comfortable solutions for your workplace - wherever that may be.

For more information on our Intertek Clean Air GOLD certification, including certificates, white papers and other materials, send us an email at [email protected] or give us a call at (510) 646-8368.

¹In a previous article, we talked about the safety of our materials, as well as our Californian supply chain and manufacturing.