green care PROFESSIONAL provides worldwide the first comprehensive Cleaning and Care Range with the Cradle to Cradle Certified^_CM GOLD Certificate!

Mainz,27th January, January 2014 – worldwide, at the 17^th of December 2013, for the first time, a comprehensive professional cleaning and care range has received the ambitious award Cradle to Cradle Certified^CM Gold. “Our green care PROFESSIONAL brand has once again proven to be a leader in sustainability,” Frank Vancraeyveld, CEO and Head of the Werner & Mertz Professional Division , said today. “We feel very honored for this outstanding result from the demanding Cradle to Cradle Certified^CM program. The award is an independent institution’s validation of our own high demands and quality standards.”

This selection of 8 eco – effective professional cleaning and care products reflects outstanding innovative developed products which have also already obtained the EU - Ecolabel and are designed for all professional institutional- and industrial industries like food service, healthcare, lodging and building service contractors.

The complete range is available in 1L bottles and 5L cans and guarantees a holistic sustainable cleaning approach for:

Sanitary Rooms: SANET perfect, SANET zitrotan, SANET alkastar

Surfaces: TANET SR 15, TANET karacho, TANET orange

Floors: TAWIP vioclean

Glass Surfaces: GLASS cleaner

The Cradle to Cradle®* principle was invented by Prof. Dr. Michael Braungart and William McDonough and further developed by the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency (EPEA), an international research and environmental consulting institution based in Hamburg.

The selected green care PROFESSIONAL products were thoroughly analyzed for certification. The Cradle to Cradle® Design encompasses a detailed evaluation key to assess products. This evaluatation shows that:

- Used materials (cleaning chemistry and packaging) are safe and healthy for human and environment.

- Product design ensures that all ingredients can be reused as nutrients safely in biological and technical cycles by nature or industry. “Waste equals Food”.

- Manufacturing sites use 100% non - polluting, renewable energy which displaces energy produced from fossil fuels. 100% carbon offset.

- Water quality and supplies are protected and enriched.

- Company is committed to advanced social and environmental justice as well as biodiversity.

Cradle to Cradle® is eco-effective as it eliminates the concept of waste by the right product design - in contrast to eco - efficiency which only reduces, minimizes or avoids waste.

Cradle to Cradle® combined with the other Ecolabels goes beyond performance and completes all key elements for the integral sustainable product design.

“Nowadays it is technically possible to develop eco - effective products that provide high performance and meet the highest environmental standards along the entire value chain,” said Frank Vancraeyveld. “Decades of experience as a sustainability pioneer have brought the Werner & Mertz Group to this point. To be recognized as the first business worldwide to achieve Cradle to Cradle Certified^CM Gold with a comprehensive professional cleaning and care range is the most convincing proof of our success.”

Products developed and used in cycles

The Cradle to Cradle® approach stands in contrast to the well-known linear production principle of Cradle to Grave. In the latter system, materials often flow without conscious consideration given to the long-term protection of natural resources from their sources to their disposal.

Cradle to Cradle® is based instead on the design of products for biological or technical cycles. The challenge is in planning the product’s progress through a closed material cycle, which means that product materials should be suitable for a safe and complete return to the biosphere or for recovery and good quality reuse.

Future products should be designed in such a way that the quality of recycling fractions is improved and recycling is done at the same or higher level. Ingredients, including pigments and additives, should be selected to preclude toxic effects during use or in other phases such as manufacturing, recycling and reuse. In keeping with the Cradle to Cradle® principle, crude oil, for instance, used one time to make plastic, remains in the cycle and is not irretrievably burned. The energy for recycling, as for other production processes, should be drawn if possible from renewable sources in an environmentally and climate-friendly fashion. A good example of this is the production of a new PET bottle from an old PET bottle.

“Integrally sustainable is the Werner & Mertz credo,” confirms also Reinhard Schneider, CEO and owner of the Werner & Mertz Group. He is convinced that credible eco - effective products like the green care PROFESSIONAL range can come only from a company that consistently pursues sustainability in everything it does. “Consequently, the ecological and sustainable development of this range does not end with the elimination of critical ingredients. Werner & Mertz makes sure that the product life cycle is integrated in the material cycles of nature.”

*Cradle to Cradle® is a registered trademark of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry LLC. Cradle to Cradle Certified^CM is a certification mark licensed exclusively for the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute (C2CPII).

The Company

Werner & Mertz Professional is the pioneer in integrally sustainable high performing cleaning and sanitizing products for the professional institutional and industrial sector. tana PROFESSIONAL and green care PROFESSIONAL are the two European leading brands.

Protecting resources, sustainability and the preservation of biodiversity have always been the focus of Werner & Mertz Group, being EMAS certified and having received the “LEED Platinum” for its headquarter in Mainz.

For over 140 years the Werner & Mertz Group feels very committed to the Mainz location. Being present on the market for over 140 years they are committed to the principles of an environmentally sound and sustainable business approach, because sustainability is not seen as a temporary trend, but a company tradition being practised every day.