Considering the many years it took, it is a bit startling for me—someone who first began advocating for Green Cleaning more than two decades ago—that we can now say Green Cleaning is becoming the norm when it comes to professional cleaning in North America. Does this mean every facility has adopted a Green Cleaning program? No, for while scores of facilities have adopted Green Cleaning products and methods, many in all types of industry sectors are still using traditional cleaning products.
However, what we are witnessing is that even in those facilities still using conventional cleaning products, more and more consideration is being given to selecting environmentally preferable cleaning products and tools. This means that, step-by-step, they are transitioning to Green Cleaning and will likely transfer completely in the next few years.
The reasons why Green Cleaning has finally taken hold so firmly in professional cleaning are many. However, among the key reasons are the following:
Performance. The performance of many environmentally preferable cleaning products now meets or exceeds that of conventional cleaning products.
Costs. While Green Cleaning chemicals in particular may still be a bit more expensive to purchase, because they are highly concentrated they often stretch further, minimizing the cost factor. Plus the less tangible benefits such as improved worker morale and enhanced performance also add value to the use of environmentally preferable cleaning products.
Health. As more credible studies have been released in the past decade indicating the health benefits of using Green Cleaning products, the facts have spoken for themselves. The products foster a healthier indoor environment, increasing the demand for Green Cleaning.
Certification. Going back more than 30 years, there has been considerable confusion as to what exactly is a Green cleaning product. Guidelines developed by credible, independent sources along with independent, third-party certification have helped end this confusion.
Opportunities. When it became clear that Green Cleaning was a concept whose time had come, manufacturers in the professional cleaning industry as well as distributors and contract cleaners all rushed to get on the Green cleaning bandwagon. In addition to providing new opportunities for industry veterans and newcomers alike, this has increased the proliferation of Green Cleaning products and services related to Green Cleaning.
Another factor that has helped make Green Cleaning mainstream is LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design). Initially, facilities seeking LEED certification were awarded credits if they incorporated Green Cleaning. However, in 2009 the U.S. Green Building Council made Green Cleaning a prerequisite to earn certification for LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (LEED-EBOM), essentially making the use of environmentally preferable cleaning chemicals, tools, and equipment a foregone conclusion. And because a Green Cleaning program is relatively easy and cost-effective to implement, even those facilities not necessarily seeking LEED certification but looking for ways to make their properties healthier have transferred to Green Cleaning.
Ingredient Disclosure and Sustainability
While it appears Green Cleaning has a solid footing in the professional cleaning and facility management industries, this does not mean things are standing still. Green Cleaning should always be viewed as a journey, evolving over time, with new products, procedures, methods, and systems. The ultimate goal of Green Cleaning is to make facilities healthier for the people that use them.
One of the next steps in Green Cleaning is likely to be ingredient disclosure. Also known as product labeling, the aim is to list all ingredients in a cleaning product and to provide this information either directly with the product or online. There are many reasons why this is important. In 2011, Women’s Voices for the Earth (WVE), an organization that works to eliminate toxic chemicals that can impact women’s health, released a study, “Dirty Secrets: What’s hiding in your cleaning products?” The study tested 20 cleaning products from five product manufacturers to determine the ingredients used in the products. Reproductive toxins, carcinogens, hormone disruptors, and allergens were found in many of these products. WVE believes these toxins should be listed on product labels so that consumers are aware of the potential dangers.
It would be beneficial for product labeling to apply to environmentally preferable cleaning products as well. Let’s say we have two comparable cleaning chemicals, both Green-certified. However, one contains an ingredient that can cause allergic reactions in children but the other does not. If you were the administrator of a school, wouldn’t you want to know this before making a product selection?
Another development in Green Cleaning is that Green Cleaning and sustainability are merging.1 One of the benefits of most Green-certified cleaning chemicals is that they are made from renewable natural resources. This compares with conventional cleaning products that often are manufactured using a variety of nonrenewable ingredients, some of which are petroleum-based.
However, all of these chemicals, whether Green or conventional, still must be packaged and transported, which often requires the use of nonrenewable resources. Are the products packaged using recycled and recyclable materials? Are chemicals placed into larger containers, five-gallon drums for instance, so that they last longer, reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by vehicles and the fuel necessary to transport the product? In many cases, Green Cleaning products have already or are moving in this direction.
The Ultimate in Green Cleaning…No Chemicals at All
Finally, we are witnessing the beginning of no-chemical cleaning. In the past few years, advances in technologies, and even a reawakening to old technologies, has shown us that very often we can clean effectively, both for appearance and for health, without the use of any chemicals at all. For instance, as to old technologies, vapor cleaning systems clean by using heated water. The vapor is hot enough to kill many if not most pathogens found on surfaces as well as dissolve soils.
Taking this a step further, what is often referred to as cleaning with electrolyzed water is making its mark as a safe, Green, sustainable, and effective way to perform a number of cleaning tasks. While not a new technology—in fact it was developed more than 40 years ago—it has become much more cost-effective, and cleaning tools operated using electrolyzed water are now much easier to use. We will be hearing more about this technology and its use as a Green Cleaning alternative in years to come.
The Biggest Change: The Value of Cleaning
It is possible we have overlooked the most important change that has evolved and is still continuing to evolve when it comes to Green Cleaning, and that is the value of cleaning. We know that Green Cleaning helps protect human health and now we are realizing that it also helps promote sustainability. This increases the value of cleaning and the value of the people that perform cleaning services as well as those throughout the professional cleaning industry. For an industry that for decades was little seen, rarely heard, and always undervalued, this is probably the biggest change of all.
1 Sustainable is a very broad term and can refer to a number of different concepts. For our purposes here, we will use the term in reference to using chemical ingredients derived from renewable resources
