Seeing the bigger picture
June 17th 2011

You can’t be green without addressing sustainability, social issues and profitability, argues Andrew Large of the CSSA

A year has passed since the last green cleaning issue, and I am still beating the drum for sustainability. Green issues are important, but sustainability is significantly more important than that. I would like to share with you some thoughts derived from a recent CSSA Survey on sustainability and use that survey to focus attention on some key issues for the future.

Social counts

One of the key findings was that only 10% of respondents felt that social issues were the most important for cleaning contractors. Some 57% of respondents favoured green issues and 33% thought profitability was the most important.

In an industry dominated by labour issues, this is somewhat startling. It reinforces two key needs for the cleaning industry. The first to recognise that the quality of the labour force is a key determinant of success, and that environmental initiatives based on improved service delivery, like the use of dosing systems or daytime cleaning, will be frustrated if the employees are not willing or able to implement them. The second is to be aware that one of the reasons that environmental issues have come to the fore is that they are linked to a saleable product. However, just because product marketing is leading industry attitudes does not mean that social or profitability issues should fade into the background. In terms of green cleaning, a poorly trained and motivated workforce and/or financial worries will be the death of green cleaning just as much as popping open the proverbial bottle of bleach.

Water is more important than ever

One of the second findings from our research was the importance of water in the minds of cleaning contractors. Some 45% of respondents felt that water was the number one environmental priority for the cleaning industry. With 2011 being one of the driest years on record so far in the UK, the management of water used by the cleaning industry is only going to rise in importance. Once hosepipe bans are in place, then cleaning technology such as water fed poles rapidly becomes a target for authorities seeking to preserve drinking water supplies at all costs.

Reducing water in the cleaning process is relatively easy up to a point. One can take more time, use more power or more chemicals and achieve more or less the same short term effect. Except of course you can’t. Using more time eats into the profitability of the contract. More power pushes out more carbon and more chemicals increases costs and risks both health and safety and damage issues. So it seems that in the short term the cleaning industry is stuck with the water use it has. I look forward to the innovation in cleaning around closed circuit water systems and consumption reduction that the water challenges of the 21st century will bring.

Assertive client relations

A final key point to emerge from the research is the impact of client relationships on sustainability issues. Unless the client agrees, then you will never be able to do what you would like to do, however much sense it may make. Client relations are a key issue in moving the provision of cleaning services out of the range of commodities and into the range of value added services where it belongs. This is squarely a green cleaning issue. If the client thinks that your service is only about price, then there won’t be any investment in environmental initiatives. Cleaning contractors need to become more assertive with their clients. They need to be able to show their expertise and demonstrate why they cannot be easily replaced.

Green cleaning remains of fundamental importance to the cleaning industry; just as much as it remains a subset of the more important sustainable cleaning agenda. It is a global agenda too. The World Federation of Building Service Contractors has launched both a sustainable cleaning manifesto and a cleaning for health initiative. These have global support and will help to drive the agenda of sustainable cleaning forwards.

If you want to know more about this or any of the other issues then contact me on alarge@cleaningassoc.org.

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