Sustainability
The Cleaning Industry and Sustainability: Clean and Green for the Future
Sustainability now shapes economic policy across most of the world. The guidelines for limiting global warming call for cutting net emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 50 percent before 2030, and reaching no net emissions by 2050 — the target widely known as Net Zero. That deadline is forcing companies to take a hard look at how they go green.
Few sectors feel the shift more than commercial cleaning. Customers want greener products and clearer proof of sustainability, which means meeting today's needs without compromising the needs of future generations. Plenty of cleaning companies have already launched green initiatives, but the room for environmental improvement is still wide open.
Key Takeaways
- Green cleaning is currently the strongest trend in the cleaning industry.
- Improving sustainability in the cleaning industry involves reducing the use of resources throughout a product’s life cycle.
- The benefits of sustainability may be classified into profits, people, and the planet.
What Is Green Cleaning?
Green cleaning protects health without harming the environment. It combines chemicals, equipment, technology, and tools chosen to be friendlier to the planet than their conventional equivalents. The products lean heavily on natural, renewable, or recycled materials, and their packaging uses less paper and plastic than the alternatives.
The Green Cleaning Trend
Businesses and professional associations in the cleaning sector have tracked the move toward sustainability for years. The Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association calls green cleaning the strongest trend in the industry, describing it as “a marketplace phenomenon that is being driven by customer demand and the overall trending of the broad marketplace for environmentally preferable products and services.”
Sustainability in the Cleaning Industry
Sustainability in Products
Sustainable cleaning products draw on energy, water, and other materials at every phase of their life cycle — manufacture, transportation, storage, and finally the disposal of the product and its packaging. The goal of sustainability is to raise the overall efficiency of resource use across all of those phases, not just one of them. A new process that cut the energy needed to manufacture a product would not count as sustainable if it pushed up the energy needed to ship and use it by more than it saved. Life cycle analysis (LCA) is the technique used to study the total resources a product requires, which break down into:
- Raw materials
- Packaging
- Energy
- Water
Raw materials cover everything that goes into the product except water. Packaging protects it from manufacture until use. Energy goes into making the product, making its packaging, and moving it. Water can enter the picture at several stages along the way.
Sustainability in Equipment
Employees and customers increasingly expect companies to weigh environmental impact when they make fleet decisions. For commercial cleaners, that points toward greener fleets built on cleaner vehicles, electric ones especially. Cleaner fuels and more fuel-efficient operations round out the picture. Each of these measures shrinks a company's environmental footprint and trims operating costs at the same time.
Sustainability in Technology
The technology behind sustainable cleaning systems includes biological products and methods that are safer for both people and the environment. It can cut air and water pollution and curb ozone depletion, which in turn lowers the contribution to global warming. Newer tools such as pulse mops and microfiber cloths cut detergent use, so they waste less and cost less to run. Internet of things (IoT) technology like ToolSense adds another layer, keeping suppliers informed about the tools and equipment moving through their supply chain.
Social Sustainability
Social sustainability is about the health and well-being of people. Cleaning products serve it by stripping harmful allergens and microorganisms out of the environment, keeping spaces such as homes clean and comfortable. It also reaches back into production: the products and equipment themselves should not harm the workers who make them.
New Green Cleaning Technology, Products and Practices
The core technologies, products, and practices in green cleaning, aligned with Green Seal GS-42 guidance for commercial and institutional cleaning services, include:
- High-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration systems
- No-touch cleaning systems
- Environmentally friendly solvents
Cleaning companies can phase these innovations in to replace less sustainable products, moving toward sustainable development cleaning at whatever pace their budget allows. ToolSense supports that shift by developing and commercializing smart cutting tools fitted with individual sensors and integrated multi-sensors. The technology lets users measure and monitor parameters during a machining process and store the results online.
Organizations can also fold smart tools into the supply chain they already run. Sensors generate specific knowledge about materials, tools, and machining processes, and that data is what lets smart tools take manufacturing a step further. Companies that adopt them strengthen their position by making production more sustainable while cutting resource use and environmental impact.
Reaching project goals with green cleaning technology runs through a workflow of six work packages (WP). WP1 develops thermal sensors and WP2 develops force and vibration sensors. WP3 develops sensors for monitoring sound and tool conditions. WP4 integrates the sensors into a single smart tool. WP5 and WP6 handle the validation, optimization, and demonstration of tooling processes.
Plenty happens over an asset’s lifecycle — requesting new machines, moving locations, and more. Running all of it through a single platform sharpens operational efficiency dramatically.
The Importance of Sustainability in the Cleaning Industry
Case study after case study shows that green cleaning pays off for revenue, people, and the environment alike. Take Kimberly-Clark Professional, a leading manufacturer of washroom products. In 2001 it launched a sustainability program called Reduce Today, Respect Tomorrow, built around cutting natural-resource use across the lifecycle of the company’s products. The company usually gets there by designing products so users consume less — either by making the product itself more efficient or by making the dispensing method more reliable.
Only 100 companies in the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 published sustainability reports in 2011; by 2021 that number had climbed to 430. Those reports increasingly demand sustainability initiatives from their cleaning suppliers. And once an S&P 500 company finds a supplier that meets its criteria, it has little reason to switch — which hands a real advantage to early adopters.
Sustainability in industrial cleaning also gives small businesses a better shot at competing for clients. Sustainability programs tend to weigh a company's impact on the local community and reward buying locally, so local small businesses stand to gain, as long as their prices stay competitive.
Why More Companies Adapt to Green Cleaning
Efficiency is the first step toward sustainability, and it lifts net profit over the long run. ISSA's Distributor, Efficiency, Analytics & Learning (DEAL) program has saved the company over $1.5 million on minimal capital investment. With an average profit margin around 7 percent in the cleaning industry, savings of $10,000 are worth as much as $285,000 in sales. The gains compound, since sustainability work can run in parallel with the search for new revenue.
Sustainability also covers social responsibility — wages, benefits, and training — and aims to support honorable work practices without saddling the company with a cost disadvantage. Treating workers better lifts job satisfaction and lowers turnover, which cuts hiring and training costs. It also tends to improve client retention and reduce customer complaints.
Beyond products and services, sustainability benefits the environment through how an organization operates. It looks at how facilities like manufacturing sites, offices, and warehouses produce and consume energy, water, and waste. DEAL's reduction in participating companies' environmental impact is equivalent to planting 40,000 trees and letting them grow for 10 years. Applied across the whole cleaning industry, that benefit would be 100 times greater.
„We wanted to have a solution that does not only track expensive assets but also cheap ones. In Austria, ISS operates over 6,500 cleaning machines alone, without even counting vacuum cleaners and other pieces of equipment. With ToolSense we bring them together on a single platform, leveraging data from IoT hardware and improving maintenance and inspection processes.“
6 Steps Towards Sustainability in the Cleaning Industry
These six steps map out how an organization can work its way toward sustainability:
- Commit to sustainability: Commitment has to start at the top. Senior executives need to buy in before anything else moves.
- Write it down: Documenting the program sharply improves its odds of success — it makes the objectives clear, fixes accountability, and builds a culture of sustainability.
- Engage employees: Sustainability is a team effort, so every department has to contribute. Bring in other stakeholders, vendors included, once the project is far enough along.
- Measure: Tracking how much you consume and waste gives you the baseline to set usage limits.
- Monitor: Watching resource consumption keeps companies from backsliding and shows measurable progress toward the goals.
- Set goals: Targets that are realistic but not too cautious matter most at the start of a project. They also push people to find fresh ways to cut waste.
How ToolSense Improves Your Asset Lifecycle Processes
Conclusion
For cleaning companies, sustainability has stopped being optional. The road to Net Zero still demands plenty of work, even from the firms already deep into best practices. The payoff is that adapting to green cleaning serves the business, its customers, and everyone else with a stake in the outcome.
FAQ
How Can Cleaning Be Sustainable?
Cleaning can be sustainable by using products that reduce waste, pollution, and ozone depletion. The latest sustainable products include pulse mops and microfiber mop heads, which use less water and detergent.
What Are 5 Things That Contribute to Sustainability?
The five factors that contribute to sustainability include the following: elimination of harmful chemicals, water conservation, waste reduction, new practices and new technology.
Which Industries Are Most Sustainable?
The cleaning industry is one of the most sustainable, according to the Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association. This trend is driven by customer demand and the overall demand for environmentally friendly products.
What Is an Example of a Sustainable Company?
Kimberly-Clark Professional is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of washroom products and strongest examples of a sustainable company. It launched a sustainable program in 2001 that reflects the company’s reduction of resource consumption. This program manufactures products in ways that use few resources, generally by improving manufacturing efficiency and dispensing methods.
