Home Cleaning & Maintenance Basic Steps You Can Take to Employ a Green Cleaning Program

Basic Steps You Can Take to Employ a Green Cleaning Program

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It’s easy to see why “green cleaning” is a hot industry topic. We all want a clean and healthy space to live, work and play—and we need to achieve that in a sustainable way so we can enjoy that space for the long term.

More emphasis has been placed on sustainability within the lodging industry during the last decade. In fact, the 2010 “Business Cleaning Sustainability Study,” conducted by Procter & Gamble Professional, revealed that nine out of 10 survey respondents believe sustainability and environmental responsibility is important for their business. Furthermore, of all the industries surveyed, these practices resonated most with the lodging industry. While everyone is in agreement that sustainable cleaning is important, deciding how to implement a program can be incredibly confusing. This article will share some basic principles and actions hoteliers can take to employ a green cleaning program.

Clean for Health First

We clean areas and surfaces for one main reason: to reduce the risk of human exposure to potentially harmful substances and conditions. Therefore, a cleaning program should be designed to clean for health first and foremost. When the focus is on getting rid of dirt, soil and germs, it also reduces the possibility of transmitting infectious diseases. At the same time, aesthetics are improved, which is critical to keeping a lodging property looking, smelling and feeling clean.

So what is “green cleaning” anyway? It is the process of getting rid of pathogens and soils with products and techniques that do the job as well as traditional approaches, and have reduced health or environmental impacts.

The “and” is important. There’s a saying, “if it isn’t clean, it isn’t green.” If a product does not do the basic job of getting rid of dirt, grime and soil, then no matter what green aspects the product claims to have, it will not drive overall sustainability because the main job isn’t getting done.

When a product doesn’t clean properly, housekeeping staff will end up using more of it. That adds up to: more energy and water in production, more packaging for the waste stream, more gas for transportation, and more labor as people compensate with elbow grease.

Pay Particular Attention to Labor

The labor portion, in particular, can drive up the overall cost, especially in the lodging industry where labor accounts for 80 percent or more of the overall cleaning costs. This stresses the need for cleaning products that can do the job in a sustainable way.

An important step that hoteliers can take in deciding which products to deploy for their cleaning program is to understand the manufacturers’ process for developing their products.

Here are some things to consider when examining cleaning manufacturers:

• Do their products require a trade-off between sustainability and performance?
• Are the manufacturers following strict standards to ensure human and environmental safety?
• Are sustainability considerations incorporated in designing all of their products?

The Importance of Proper Training and Use

Selecting products for greener cleaning practices is only half the story. Current research shows that how a product is used is the biggest driver of environmental impacts and cleaning efficiency. You can have the best cleaning product in the world, but if it is used improperly—such as cleaning an area or soil it wasn’t designed for—it will result in poor cleaning and sustainability performance. It’s not only a waste of product, but of time and money.

One of the most powerful steps hoteliers can take is to ensure housekeeping staff are well trained. Below is a simple checklist to reference:

• Does your staff understand which products to use for each area of your hotel property?
• Is your staff aware of all the guidelines in the safe handling, use and recycling of products and packaging?
• Are you showing your staff how to be efficient—using the right amount of product to get the job done, not less (creating rework) and not more (which creates waste)?

If your staff can get the job done right the first time, the benefits can be enormous. You can minimize the amount of product used, reduce waste, reduce transportation costs, reduce emitted carbon dioxide, and best of all, save money in the long run. As a bonus, your staff will be more efficient and you may be able to free up time from cleaning to work on other critical business tasks.

Choosing good products, understanding the science behind them and how they should be properly used are the key drivers to a healthy, sustainable facility. But there’s one critical step that has to come first—you have to decide to do it, and commit to a green cleaning program. There are many roadmaps on how to do this—I recommend reading “Green Cleaning for Dummies” by Stephen Ashkin and David Holly. The most important thing is to get started.

Chris Vuturo is the Procter & Gamble Professional external relations manager. He has been with Procter & Gamble for 10 years, working on marketing and sustainability initiatives for brands such as Fit, Cheer and Febreze, as well as P&G Professional. A graduate of Harvard University, Chris also holds a master’s degree in environmental assessment and evaluation from the London School of Economics, a master’s degree in environmental management from the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, and an MBA from the Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Prior to joining P&G, Chris was a high school teacher.

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