Hi BruceB,
I have one of their bio-green pillows and it had very little odor but smell and VOC’s are very different things (many VOC’s have no odor at all).
Based on their testing results they list here it appears that their total VOC emissions are well below both Oeko-Tex and CertiPur testing protocols but I don’t know how Greenguard’s testing protocol compares to the specific testing methods for CertiPur or OekoTex and there are no individual limits for specific VOC’s mentioned, only a total.
The CertiPur VOC testing protocol uses the standards outlined in “Test Method: ISO 16000 – Parts 6, 9 & 11 – with chamber conditioning for 72 hours” and some of the individual VOC’s have a limit of “below detection” regardless of the total VOC content.
Some of the limits for individual VOC’s with OekoTex testing are .002 mg/m3 but I don’t know the specific protocol they use in terms of the size of the testing chamber or any preconditioning (both of which would affect results).
Having said this, their memory foam is made with MDI rather than TDI and I believe it would compare well to other memory foams on the market in terms of emissions using either CertiPur or OekoTex methods.
I tried to email Greenguard to find out the specifics of their testing and you can see the results here (which means I don’t know the specific criteria they use). In the first post of this thread you can also see that the FTC is also clamping down on “green” and VOC claims and Tempflow/Relief Mart is one of the companies mentioned. In all fairness most of the industry is making misleading claims about how “green” their foam may be, especially in regards to plant based polyols (see post #2 here) so they are certainly not alone in this and to some degree I think the FTC is making an example of them to send a message to the industry (unlike Essentia which deserved a much higher level of scrutiny for the claims they were making IMO).
Overall I would have no qualms about the relative “safety” of the memory foam they use compared to other memory foams (or the relative safety of most of the memory foam made in North America for that matter) and the few memory foams that are OekoTex certified (which is a more stringent standard than CertiPur) tend to be MDI based.
Phoenix