Oftentimes, companies will rely on slick marketing to overwhelm our desire to learn more about the products we use every day. Hearing that a popular dish soap is “safe enough to wash a duck” doesn’t actually tell you what’s in the product. Words like “natural” or “green” don’t mean anything either, but brands hide behind these vague words to sell more. You deserve to know what’s in the stuff you buy so that you can make more informed choices.

We talk openly about ingredients, packaging, and corporate policies to make it easier to understand what it is we do here. Sharing information publicly also allows for trusted third parties (including nonprofits and media) to help distill information and make it more accessible to you.

From day one, we’ve listed every ingredient for every product on the packaging. We do this because you deserve to know what’s in the products you bring into your home and use around your family. Even today, there are no federal requirements to disclose the ingredients used in home cleaning products. We’ve spoken up in support of greater transparency when the issue has come up in legislation, including California’s Cleaning Product Right to Know Act. This was the first state-level requirement to disclose the ingredients on cleaning products in the US—and it only went into effect in 2019! We support efforts like these that hold companies accountable for their products to provide you with more information about what’s in your home.

The natural side effect of talking about our ingredients is that we strive to make our products as people- and planet-friendly as possible. That means working with third-party/independent experts to ensure our ingredients meet the toughest standards out there. MADE SAFE® screens every product to make sure that all ingredients we use are among the best-in-class for human health and safety. Our friends at Leaping Bunny certify that our supply chain does not include animal testing.

Being transparent also includes talking about the areas we still have work to do. We continue to strive to make our packaging as low impact and easy to recycle as possible. We’re always looking for packaging made of a single material, such as paper, rather than mixed material designs like plastic-lined paper cartons. We have yet to find an automatic dishwashing powder formula that meets our high expectations for performance that also meets our ingredient requirements. We’re still working on these improvements, and will continue to do so until we find the right solutions.

Most of the time you hear someone in business use the term “shareholder”, they only mean the people that have invested money in the business. We strongly disagree. Our definition of “shareholders” includes anyone and anything impacted by our business. This includes our team who makes amazing products every day, our friends and neighbors in the Chicago manufacturing community and all their friends and families who require safe, clean air and water. We realize that our business affects the people and planet around us, and our business decisions must take this impact into account. We strive to consider the best potential outcomes for all of these stakeholders.

We start closest to our home and work out from there. Our team work is what makes the dream work, and we do the best we can to take care of them. This includes a living wage, benefits, and a flexible schedule so they can work to live, not live to work. We also realize that everything we all use every day has to come from somewhere, including essential items like cleaning products. Our business’s impact ultimately comes from how we get the materials we use every day, and who get them from. This awareness guides our own sourcing efforts, striving to build a strong, sustainable, transparent supply chain for things we buy every day.

Our factory in Chicago is where we turn raw materials into cleaning products. We work with our local business neighbors to bring good jobs to the city. Starting in 2024 we engaged with Living Wage for US to ensure we are meeting our promise of providing good jobs for everyone that makes our products. While some companies are little more than a marketing firm buying from contractors with unknown working conditions for their workers, we make our products right here in Chicago with our own production staff. We take this responsibility for the financial well-being of our team as seriously as we do our ingredient quality.

Outside the factory, we prioritize using science and rigorous research to foster and protect our community around the world, not just Chicago. We work with 1% for the Planet and their non-profit partners to give back to organizations committed to protecting or planet for future generations. We do our best to respond to better information when it’s available, and adjust our ingredients, packaging, and other areas of impact as we know more.

To make sure we’re staying on top of what’s truly best for our community, we are a Certified B Corporation. This means that the dedicated team at B Lab looks through our business and evaluates if we really do all the great things we say we do. Their assessment not only holds us accountable for what we do day-to-day, but provides us  a roadmap for our progress as we grow.

We believe companies need to take a longer-term approach to business. We don’t let our quarterly returns dictate everything we do. Sometimes the best decision for our business and our community might make us “less” in the short term, but will leave our community in a better place in the long-run. You’ll often hear people refer to the indigenous philosophy known as the Seventh Generation Principle. Simply put, this means we’re short-term stewards of the resources available to us, and our job is to preserve our planet for those coming after us.

Our goal is to only sell effective products made with people- and planet-friendly ingredients and packaging. We could add scent booster beads just to boost our sales, but these products simply aren’t necessary for cleaning your clothes or your home. We don’t have dissolvable plastic (PVA) sheets or pods either because of their intentional release of plastic into our waterways.

When developing a new product, or working to improve an old one, we look at its impact on the planet. This includes using safer ingredients for human health, as well as the environmental impact of these products that end up going down the drain in your home. This has continued our use of only MADE SAFE®-approved ingredients, and ensures our entire product line is free of single-use plastic. We believe that truly sustainable options like paper, steel, and glass are better, planet-friendly alternatives to single-use plastics like jugs, bottles, strips, and plastic-wrapped pods.

We know we could save money with cheap, single-use plastic packaging, but that’s not an environmentally-sustainable option. Viable recycling methods don’t turn off the continual supply of plastic waste into the environment. 

It shouldn’t cost more to clean better. Sustainability should not be a luxury available only to the wealthy. That’s why we work really hard to keep our prices fair and affordable. We know we could charge more (and sometimes a lot more), but we want to help as many people as possible have access to amazing, better, products.

Meliora is Latin for “better.” That name was chosen intentionally to remind us that even those on the leading the way can improve, and do more, than they did yesterday. We are a leader in cleaning products sustainability. We feel we are among the best when it comes to using both better ingredients and better packaging every day. But, we know we have to keep working to learn more as we grow, raising the bar for every brand to try to meet.

We believe that being better lifts everyone up. We’re a better company, community partner, and leader when we include everyone. Regardless of your gender identity, religious beliefs, race, sexuality, or where you’re from, we welcome everyone to the table. We’ve consistently seen that bringing people from different backgrounds to the table leads to better solutions, and we’re going to need the best possible solutions for the challenges of the future.

Over the years, we’ve made improvements throughout our company to be better for our community and the planet. Small changes like replacing plastic packing tape with paper tape or swapping plastic scoops for stainless steel scoops can add up to a larger impact.

Improving the pay and benefits we offer our team is just as important. We’ve increased pay and/or benefits every year for our team to make this the best possible place to work.

Yet, we also know we can do more than just offer great products made by great people. We continue to look for ways we can reduce our physical footprint by advocating for sustainable changes at the local, state, federal, and international levels. Through our commitment to 1% for the Planet, we partner with amazing organizations like Women’s Voices for the Earth, Beyond Plastics, and the Great Lakes Business Network to advocate for ingredient transparency, pushing for corporate responsibility for packaging waste, and protecting one of our most vital local resources—the fresh water of the Great Lakes.

It can feel daunting to make any choice to buy anything—we get it! There is a lot to consider when deciding where to spend your money and which companies you support. By talking about what we do, we hope we can make your decisions a bit easier and give you some thoughts about what you’re supporting when you buy our products made by us here in Chicago.