I recently attended the ISSA/INTERCLEAN® annual convention and taught a workshop on green cleaning.

For those of you not familiar with ISSA/INTERCLEAN, it is the most prominent cleaning industry trade show. This year’s confab was attended by more than 18,000 people and featured more than 650 exhibitors. What was obvious this year was the increased presence of green products. From cleaning chemicals to toilet paper to vacuum cleaners to floor machines to tools and more, “green” was ubiquitous. I estimate that a full third of all exhibiting manufacturers were touting new and improved green products — an enormous increase in just the past few years.

Switching from traditional products to greener alternatives can be a very good move. But the challenge for facility managers is to make the “right” green product choices amidst the avalanche of green product claims from zealous suppliers in literally every product category.

And on top of choosing the right products, tangential issues must be addressed: training; cleaning procedures; appropriate staffing levels; communications; continual improvement; accommodating sensitive and vulnerable occupants; and occupant roles and responsibility, among others.

So What’s A Facility Manager To Do?
One approach is to conduct a thorough life-cycle assessment for each product in each product category: analyze the impact from the extraction of the raw materials, how the products are manufactured, impact on both product users and building occupants when the products are used inside your building, and finally, the impact on the environment when the products are disposed of.

If you think this sounds complicated and time consuming — you’re right! And remember, you’ll need to do this for every category of products: chemicals, paper, equipment, etc. Oh, and just as a heads-up, it’s going to be difficult to get the information, since many manufacturers don’t have the data because they haven’t done the testing.

And, yes, these approaches are lacking, impractical, incredibly time consuming, and in the end, the results may still be unclear. That’s why you need to learn more about a landmark program: LEED-EB, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.

LEED-EB as the Roadmap
As with any “journey,” having a map of unfamiliar territory is extremely valuable and LEED-EB can serve as the roadmap to green cleaning. LEED-EB will help you identify the product standards for the major categories of products — chemicals, janitorial paper, trash can liners and equipment. Using LEED-EB as the roadmap then allows you to simply use your proven purchasing decision-making criteria of performance and price.

LEED-EB goes beyond products to help you implement the deeper shades of green. LEED-EB can help you identify the appropriate practices and policies that are truly necessary to make it all come together in a way that will help you implement a healthy, high-performing building.

Furthermore, LEED-EB goes beyond just the narrow concept of cleaning to address other key factors including: managing the exterior of your building to keep the dirt out in the first place, developing strategies to reduce the need for pesticides by keeping bugs and varmint out, managing chemical and storage areas to prevent contaminants from entering occupant space, and establishing a process of continual improvement so that the cleaning program is optimized over the course of time.

Although LEED-EB is still in its infancy, the results are quite impressive. Facility managers report benefits including reducing the number, quantity, toxicity and cost of cleaning products. Other benefits include increasing recycling and reducing waste, as well as reducing energy and water consumption associated with the cleaning process — all of which can result in significant dollar savings.

LEED-EB Makes Green Cleaning Easy
In a nutshell, LEED-EB facilitates any green cleaning strategy. No need to hire a chemist, toxicologist, industrial hygienist, environmental scientist or, for that matter, an expert in green cleaning. No need to “reinvent the wheel” and spend your time and limited resources developing purchasing plans from scratch and evaluating proposals from vendors. No need for unnecessary confusion or risk. And when asked what criteria you used to design your program, you can say with confidence — along with a number of green product manufacturers — that you followed the LEED-EB roadmap.


Stephen Ashkin is president of The Ashkin Group, LLC, a nationally recognized consultant firm with extensive experience helping federal agencies, states, counties, cities, school districts, commercial buildings and others implement green cleaning strategies. Ashkin is a 24-year veteran of the cleaning industry and is described in the book Environmentalism Unbound as the "leading advocate for a stronger environmental profile among cleaning product manufacturers and suppliers" and "the most visible industry figure advancing the cause of environmentally preferable products." For more information, email SteveAshkin@AshkinGroup.com or visit www.AshkinGroup.com.