As usual, interesting discussion has been taking place in Painttalk.com about green painting and green paints. The thread started with an opinion that marketing green products is sometimes influenced by unrealistic expectations of how they should perform. Are the new paints performing like the paints of yesterday? What about their cost? Are professional painters stepping out of their comfort zone by using new green paints? Professional painters rely on products that have performed perform well in the past. There is scepticism about the new “green paints”and mostly deserved.

On the question of what is green, the question was asked about having a unified standard of what is green.
The following answer from the Original poster (from http://www.degreeofgreen.com/) addresses that question.
 “The problem with a unified standard is that there is no unified definition of what “green” means. The three most-used independent certifiers, Greenguard, Greenseal and SCS, all have their own set of criteria. Plus, none of them address toxicity of ingredients that make up less than 1% of the volume. For folks with allergies, asthma and chem sensitivity, this wont help them. All in all, the independent third party certifiers are simply providing a rubber stamp for using the approved paints on a LEED project. In a home, who cares about LEED? In my years of being in this business, never has any home owner ever asked me “does this paint meet GS-11?” They don’t care about that. They ask questions like “will this paint be safe for my autistic child?” or “can I use this even though I’m pregnant?” Currently there is NO standard that addresses these questions. Therefore, you have to rely on what the mfg’s say and the track record their products have.”