Restarting Green Cleaning: First Steps in the Journey

As we move past COVID and restart our lives and businesses, it is now time to restart Green Cleaning. Many organizations put Green Cleaning on the backburner has we fought the virus. That's understandable.

But now, it is time to return to Green Cleaning. We must remember, Green Cleaning is healthy cleaning. We all want to make sure that as people return to work and schools, these facilities are not only clean and safe, but healthy. Green Cleaning helps make this happen.

With this in mind, here is an article I wrote some time ago on Green Cleaning. Let's use it as refresher so we can all begin a #greenrestart. 

When restarting a Green Cleaning program, the first thing we need to do is the following:

Get buy-in throughout the organization. Meet with stakeholders. Green cleaning can be an easy win without much effort or additional cost. It promotes health, safety, and Green Cleaning often saves money, making it a much easier sell.

Then we need to develop a Green Cleaning policy, which is simply a statement from the organization that this issue is important and aligns all the different stakeholders.

Creating a policy on Green Cleaning does not have to be difficult or time consuming. Numerous examples are available on the Internet. Also, consider the policy example offered by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) to meet requirements for the green cleaning policy in LEED: Building Operations and Maintenance.

Moving Beyond The Basics

Basic programs usually focus on products and, today, it would not be a surprise to find all buildings doing some green purchasing. Thus, it is recommended to begin by auditing the current program to determine exactly where it is and identify opportunities for improvement. This does not have to be a daunting task, especially because vendors, such as the distributors of cleaning products, are typically willing to help.

At a minimum, cleaning chemicals, paper products, and plastic can liners should be evaluated. Not only do these products have the greatest impacts on the environment, but they also represent the largest product spend categories.

Ask the auditor/vendor to identify the various products being used, along with their thoughts on alternative green products (and what makes them green) and to include any cost considerations.

Some of the basic issues to look for include:

• Ready-to-use and aerosol cleaning chemicals can be replaced with concentrates, reducing packaging and other environmental impacts and significantly reducing cost. Determine which have third-party certifications.

• Paper includes two primary issues: the material composition and how it is dispensed. Determine the percentage of post-consumer recycled content, amount of agricultural waste, or if the product was made from rapidly re-growable fibers. As to the dispensers, multi-fold paper hand towels and single-roll toilet-tissue dispensers can be replaced with large rolls and multi-roll dispensers. This can reduce paper consumption by as much as 30 percent, reducing environmental impacts and saving money.

• Plastic can liners should be audited to determine if they are necessary in the first place. The size of the receptacles should be standardized, and the bags checked for correct size and thickness. Bags that are too large or unnecessarily thick waste resources and money, while those that are too thin often require the cans to be doubled-bagged, another waste of resources and money.

For a building that has made a strong commitment to Green Cleaning in the past and has done the basics, there are plenty of opportunities to innovate and continue to drive reductions in impacts to both human health and the environment.

A well-established program often has the following attributes that serve as next steps for basic programs:

• There is an expressed commitment from the organization that green cleaning is a priority issue and a green cleaning policy is in place.

• A “road map” will be used to help identify all of the products and other issues associated with a well-established program. These road maps are often segment-specific.

• The vast majority of cleaning chemicals, especially those used daily and in larger volume — including those to clean floors and other surfaces, glass and mirrors, washrooms and carpets — are all concentrated and dispensed using some type of portion control.

• The vast majority of products will be certified to independent third-party standards by respected certification organizations.

• Equipment and miscellaneous tools have been considered for opportunities to reduce environmental impacts, as well as for ergonomic and other issues that can affect the health of cleaning personnel. These include vacuum cleaners and carpet extractors that are certified by the Carpet & Rug Institute, and other tools such as buckets, carts, mops, etc., that are durable and made from recycled materials.

Finally, what truly differentiates a basic program from a well-developed one is the training of cleaning personnel. Basic training of workers is required by law, especially as it applies to use of hazardous products.

But a well-developed program goes beyond this to make sure cleaning workers understand why their work is important (i.e., to protect occupant health), why Green Cleaning is so important , and why everyone is engaged in creating a healthy, high-performance building.

Always Room To Improve

The Green Cleaning journey has progressed enormously over the past 25 years. Perhaps the most exciting aspects are yet to be introduced as manufacturers of cleaning products increase their investment in green technologies, and as we move beyond the products themselves in an effort to create the healthiest buildings possible, with the lowest environmental impacts and cost.

The following are some of the issues that can be considered, especially for the leaders and pioneers.

• Just as with independent third-party certification of cleaning products and equipment, the leaders will consider the same type of independent review for the program itself. This will ensure that workers are properly trained, and that processes in addition to the products are done correctly and consistently. Both ISSA (International Sanitary Supply Association) and Green Seal offer such programs.

• Cleaning performance is often based on subjective measurements. Unfortunately, simply looking or smelling clean should not be the standard. That’s because it is the things we can’t see that can make occupants sick (i.e., bacteria and viruses). Thus the leaders will adopt new test equipment such as ATP meters to quantitatively determine if surfaces are clean.

• The adoption of new technologies will become a hallmark of leadership. For example, the development of devices that produce cleaning chemicals on-site will result in enormous environmental benefits by reducing impacts from the extraction of raw materials for ingredients and packaging materials. Other chemicals will rely more on probiotic bacteria and enzymes to clean the way nature does. And equipment will become more intelligent relative to its performance and maintenance, produce its own cleaning chemicals, be energy- and water-efficient, and in many cases will be operated remotely (i.e., by robots).

Now is the time to make a #greenrestart. COVID has made us realize just how important effective cleaning is. Now, lets make sure cleaning is effective and healthy, which means making sure it Green.

Stephen Ashkin is president of The Ashkin Group, an international consulting firm working to green the cleaning industry. He can be reached at Steve@AshkinGroup.com.