It is time to raise the bar when it comes to expectations and delivery of truly environmentally friendly cleaning and holistic environmental solutions for commercial premises.
In my more than 30 years in the industry, I have seen many practices change over time as newer and more effective cleaning solutions have come to market, offering greater efficiencies and better environmental outcomes. But with the onset of the recent COVID pandemic the most prevalent and endorsed cleaning solution was one that was more than 50 years old – bleach!
If more sustainable solutions existed with the same degree of efficacy, why weren’t they used or even investigated? Especially in medical and healthcare environments where patient wellbeing is paramount?
To answer that question, we need to go back to the process by which cleaning services are usually procured. In the tender for services, all the required parameters are outlined, but very few stipulate the solutions provided must meet environmental or green best practise. In this way, many services are quoted as “green” solutions that are not, or certainly not the best possible solution for the task, for the client’s premises, staff and the environment.
Life after chemicals
So how do we start the conversation about best practices to effect change? Companies, both in the facilities management industry as well as their clients, need to stop and think about what chemicals they are using, and what the potential impacts are, both from the environmental aspects.
This extends to how they are manufactured to how they are used usage, and what impact they are having on the people that use those workspaces.
When we start to think differently about this, we start to look up at the environment in its entirety, not just down at surfaces, and new solutions begin to emerge, beyond harsh chemicals. COVID has shown us that corporate work environments will never return to what they were pre-COVID.
The focus on hygiene and physical space cleanliness (or in most cases, the appearance of cleanliness) now also extends to the unseen environment in terms of air quality.
The staff within a business expect to be kept safe while at work and the demands of employees about the kind of workplace they will accept has never been greater. And this is not an unwarranted demand.
Again, COVID has shown us the dramatic economic impact a pandemic can have on the actions of individual companies and entire economies.
Holistically clean workplace environments both now and into the future will help protect workforces from contagion, and with less staff impacted, the less impact there is on the business.
To be ready for the challenges that will inevitably come, there also needs to be a standing panel of appropriate industry representatives that can be called upon to assist in formulating government policy as it pertains to workplace environmental solutions.
During COVID, we saw firsthand what happens when decisions were being made without consultation which tripled the cost of deep cleans, but ended up producing identical cleaning outcomes as the solution that was a third of the cost.
This happens when well intentioned, but perhaps not expert, people get involved in the process. If policy conversation is led by these groups, it needs to be underpinned by legislation that mandates absolute minimum standards in regard to calling any cleaning or environmental solution “green”.
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The conversation needs to be driven by business as a response to employee wellbeing and environmental concern, staff seeking the best places to work in an extremely competitive and tight labour market, and government as the rule maker.
Only then will we move away from outdated, potentially environmentally damaging solutions to genuinely eco-friendly outcomes.
Mauro Viola is Executive Director of ServiceFM