Seventh Generation Cleans House With Non-Profit Women's Action to Gain Economic Security

BURLINGTON, VT--(Marketwire - April 28, 2009) - Seventh Generation, the nation's leading brand of environmentally friendly, non-toxic home and personal care products, has partnered with Women's Action to Gain Economic Security (WAGES) to launch Home Green Home, a worker-owned residential green cleaning service in San Francisco. The partnership is designed to accelerate the creation of green cleaning jobs to benefit workers, households and the environment at large. With WAGES, Seventh Generation ensures that every fifteen clients of the residential house cleaning service create one sustainable job.

Home Green Home, the collaborative pilot program launching in San Francisco, is a new form of social enterprise, a growing movement in which non-profit organizations leverage the power of business for community benefit. The Home Green Home co-op members use Seventh Generation's non-toxic cleaning products, allowing them to work without jeopardizing their own health or that of their clients. Together, WAGES and Seventh Generation are helping to create good, green jobs with dignified pay and benefits, as well as a service that consumers can use to make a meaningful social difference with their dollars.

"Home Green Home is a realization of my dream for a new way of doing business," said Jeffrey Hollender, President and Chief Inspired Protagonist of Seventh Generation. "Creating the opportunity for women to build a life for themselves and their families on a foundation of secure, respectable, and reasonably-paid employment is a dream that is beyond the reach of many Americans. We are extremely proud to be working with WAGES to create this new possibility."

America's house cleaners are regularly exposed to toxic commercial cleaners which often lead to rashes, headaches, memory loss, asthma, and other side effects when they clean four to five homes per day. By switching to non-toxic methods, they improve and sustain their own health in the workplace and that of the environment.

Most earn wages and benefits so low they are unable to address these negative effects. For more than a decade, WAGES, the Bay Area non-profit, has launched worker-owned green businesses that create healthy, dignified jobs for low-income women. WAGES' affiliated co-op members earn a dignified living while enjoying benefits like healthcare and paid vacations, benefits that are virtually non-existent in their industry. On average, members see a household income increase of more than 50% once they join a WAGES affiliated co-op.

"The partnership with Seventh Generation has been in the making for years, as our co-ops have been using their products for the past decade," said Hilary Abell, executive director of WAGES. "We admire Seventh Generation's high standards for environmental and social responsibility, and we are thrilled that with their support we are able to provide training, education, and green jobs to even more women."

The Home Green Home co-op serves residents of San Francisco and is a template that Seventh Generation and WAGES hope to replicate in other markets in the future. For more information on Home Green Home, please visit www.homegreenhomesf.com.

ABOUT SEVENTH GENERATION

Seventh Generation is committed to being the most trusted brand of household and personal-care products for your living home. Their products are healthy and safe for the air, the surfaces, the fabrics, the pets, and the people within your home -- and for the community and environment outside of it.

For information on Seventh Generation cleaning, paper, baby and feminine personal care products, to find store locations, and explore the company's website visit www.seventhgeneration.com. To read more about Seventh Generation's corporate responsibility, visit the Corporate Consciousness Report at: www.seventhgeneration.com/corporate-responsibility/2007.

ABOUT WAGES

The mission of WAGES, an Oakland-based non-profit, is to build worker-owned green businesses that create healthy, dignified jobs for low-income women. In WAGES affiliated cooperatives, women gain good jobs, develop new skills, become leaders in their communities, and increase their economic security. Over the past decade, WAGES has launched four co-ops serving the San Francisco Bay Area. The two largest co-ops average 30 members and one million dollars in annual sales per co-op. Together, the co-ops serviced 1840 households in 50 Bay Area cities in 2008.

In addition to incubating co-ops in the San Francisco Bay Area, WAGES has provided training and technical assistance to several cooperative start-ups adapted from our model, including a landscaping co-op in Oakland and eco-friendly cleaning co-ops in Los Angeles, CA, Asheville, NC, and Winnipeg, Canada. For more information about WAGES, visit www.wagescooperatives.org.

Contact Information: Contact: Brandi Thomas (802) 658-3773 x760 www.seventhgeneration.com