ANSI Z87.1 is published by the American National Standards Institute and it's the benchmark for eye and face protection in the United States. OSHA, the American workplace safety regulator, requires eyewear that meets it.

The standard covers impact resistance, lens quality, UV and radiation filtering, and coverage. You'll see two impact markings in the wild:

• Z87 — basic impact rating

• Z87+ — high-impact rating, tested with a steel ball fired at the lens at high velocity and a heavier dropped projectile

Because a huge share of safety eyewear sold in Canada is made by or for the U.S. market, ANSI markings are everywhere on Canadian shelves and especially on Amazon. That's not a flaw, it just means you need to know what your workplace requires.

CSA Z94.3 is the Canadian standard, published by the CSA Group. It covers eye and face protectors for occupational and educational use and is the standard referenced by most provincial OHS regulations and by safety regulators like WorkSafeBC in British Columbia and the CNESST in Quebec.

Functionally, it tests for the same core hazards as ANSI: impact, optical clarity, radiation, coverage. But there are real differences in how the two systems work.

1. Who does the certifying. This is the biggest one, and almost nobody talks about it. Under ANSI Z87.1, manufacturers generally self-certify, they test (or contract testing) and declare compliance. Under CSA Z94.3, certification is third-party: testing and evaluation is done by CSA Group or by a lab that CSA qualifies and audits. A CSA mark on the frame means an independent body verified the claim.

2. Why so few suppliers are actually CSA certified. Here's the part the standards documents don't tell you: CSA certification is expensive and demanding, so a lot of legitimate manufacturers skip it. It's not just testing the glasses, CSA certification also requires inspection and certification of the facility where they're made, with ongoing audits. When we inquired with CSA about certifying Sunneys eyewear, the range quoted for going through the full process fell in the neighborhood of $20,000–$30,000/ year. That cost is exactly why many producers opt out. Instead, they'll have a third-party lab verify the eyewear complies with CSA Z94.3 without carrying full CSA certification, which leaves the choice, and the cost, with the buyer. This is the real reason you see "meets CSA" far more often than "CSA certified." It usually isn't a quality gap. It's a cost-and-process gap.

3. "Meets CSA" is not "CSA certified." Watch for this phrase when you shop. A product that says it meets CSA Z94.3 is telling you the manufacturer ran its own tests and believes it would pass. A product that is certified to CSA Z94.3 carries the CSA monogram and went through CSA's independent process. Those are very different claims wearing similar words. If your workplace requires CSA compliance, ask which one you're looking at.

4. Markings. ANSI-rated lenses are stamped Z87 or Z87+. CSA-certified eyewear carries the certification mark on the components, lenses, frame front, temples, and any removable parts. If the marking isn't physically on the eyewear, the rating effectively isn't there either, no matter what the packaging said.

5. Scope details. The standards diverge in some specifics; for example, ANSI Z87.1 includes testing designations for dust and splash exposure that CSA Z94.3 handles differently, and the standards take different approaches to side protection requirements. For most general impact-hazard work the practical protection is similar; for specialized hazards (chemical splash, radiation, high-velocity grinding), the details matter and your hazard assessment should drive the spec.