REWARDING A
SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO CLEANING AND HYGIENE
The cleaning and hygiene industries have had to reconsider much of what we do to ensure we are
meeting sustainability requirements. Environment Media Group, organiser of the European Cleaning & Hygiene Awards, considers the concept and what we can expect to see in future.
The term ‘sustainability’ – first popularised in the 1987 Brundtland report (formally known as the World Commission on Environment and Development) – is described as “the ability to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Although a wide-ranging description, people most often focus on the environmental element of the idea. Caring for the environment is an important part of sustainability but it is not just about using or making products and solutions that are ‘green’.
It is certainly not about producing glossy reports and or trying to impress customers with business ethics. Any sort of ‘greenwashing’, where companies or individuals make unfounded environmental claims, will quickly be found out and publicised – especially in these days of social media proliferation.
LIFELONG COMMITMENT Sustainability is not something that can be dipped in and out of either, it demands a continuous and lifelong approach, as well as transparency and clear goals, to be effective.
Last year’s ‘Sustainability – Best practice in Implementing Principles throughout the Business’ category was won by FM service provider Markas. Its project ‘No impact contract’ led to drastically reduced emissions from its cleaning service. The company believes that “what is measureable is improvable”, so it used the Environmental Product Declaration – the
standardised way of quantifying the environmental impact of a product or system during its lifecycle – to assess its hospital cleaning ‘from the cradle-to-grave’.
The results allowed Markas to implement a series of solutions to optimise processes as well as implementing a compensative reforestation programme to neutralise C02 emissions for a year of service. It did this through a mix of reforestation initiatives at its head office, the hospital site being cleaned and elsewhere nationally and internationally.
The impact of this initiative will be long lasting and Markas was a worthy winner of the inaugural award. Cradle-to- grave thinking where the manufacturer considers all the effects on the environment of making, using and disposing of a product is certainly a huge step forward on previous consumption models.
THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABILITY With the cradle-to-grave method of consumption, material still ends up being discarded after being used. Will this be the year that we see a cleaning or hygiene business at the awards which has introduced a cradle-to-cradle approach? Cradle-to-cradle seeks to create production techniques that are efficient but more importantly waste free. All the material used is viewed as either a technical (to be recycled or reused with no loss of quality) or biological (to be composted or consumed) nutrient. The products are designed with their second, third and fourth life in mind from the outset.
Other developments we could see include the move from being not just carbon neutral to net positive – actually reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. And, of course, new technology has a part to play. Will someone have harnessed new technology to take a more sustainable approach? We’ll have to wait and see, but these are exciting times to be involved in the cleaning and hygiene sectors and we know that you won’t let us down in terms of sustainability excellence.
This year’s ‘Sustainability – Best practice in Implementing Principles throughout the Business’ category, sponsored by Werner and Mertz, is open to any business operating within the professional cleaning sector – service, manufacturing, and distribution. Entrants must demonstrate how the principles of sustainability are fundamental to their culture of the company and key initiatives undertaken.
www.echawards.com www.tomorrowscleaning.com REGULAR | 23
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