Do Your Cleaning Strategies Support Your Sustainability Goals?

Across every industry, sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics are core considerations in business operations and competitive strategies. It’s not just about satisfying investors and other stakeholders— sustainability is correlated with improved business performance that creates shared value for your business, customers, and communities.

But is your facility cleaning program aligned with your company’s sustainability goals?

Here are three ways that a strategic, modern cleaning program can support your company’s sustainability goals by reducing chemical use, improving waste and energy conservation, and empowering your employees.

3 ways facility cleaning programs should align with sustainability goals

Sustainable cleaning that supports healthy shared spaces and reduces chemical use

Thanks to COVID-19, we all know more than ever about how the cleanliness of shared spaces supports health by mitigating risk of infectious diseases. But cleaning itself often presents its own health risks within these shared spaces, from harming indoor air quality to leaving residues that irritate skin.

With that in mind, we are seeing a shift in how to think about solutions moving forward. Companies now make big investments to achieve certifications like Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), WELL Building Standard or Fitwel, adding advanced technologies from LED lighting to sophisticated air filtration, to advanced water conservation.

A modern cleaning program should be built around eliminating toxic substances and reducing overall chemical usage. That means switching to safer, non-irritating cleaning products, and using low- or no-residue products whenever possible.

Responsible, sustainable cleaning programs can also leverage innovative technologies to completely eliminate chemical usage in many cleaning tasks. For example, Tennant ec-H2O NanoClean® technology transforms the water from your tap into a safe, effective cleaning solution that delivers reliable performance for nearly all floor cleaning applications.

Sophisticated cleaning equipment can also significantly improve cleaning efficiency while providing sustainability benefits. State-of-the-art floor scrubbers, for example, can provide highly effective cleaning while using less chemicals.

Sustainable cleaning that will save water and energy consumption

Because chemical usage is typically correlated with water and energy consumption in cleaning programs, all the strategies for chemical reduction mentioned above double as strategies to reduce consumption of these resources. This means cleaning programs can reap a multi-faceted return on their investment in modern, sustainable cleaning equipment.

For example, a new generation of microscrubbers are purpose-built to replace mop-and-bucket cleaning in smaller spaces all over a facility. A cleaning program that swaps mops for microscrubbers can expect to use a lot less water, along with less energy—and get a lot better, more consistent cleaning results.

Additionally, Tennant continues to partner with our customers to increase the energy efficiency of our portfolio and offer electric, battery-powered solutions like lithium-ion, helping our customers reduce their carbon emissions. In fact, we have reduced the greenhouse gas emissions from the use of products by 32%.*

* 2021 data compared to a 2016 baseline.

Sustainable cleaning that supports worker empowerment

The success of any business relies on people – employees, customers, partners, and communities. Because of this, social concerns are core to a comprehensive sustainability strategy and goals.

Here again, companies can reap the benefits of cleaning equipment and innovations that provide a more ergonomic way to clean that benefits cleaning crews.

In particular, the script has flipped on automation and robotics. Autonomous mobile robotic (AMR) technologies are not a tool for replacing human workers.

Rather, AMRs are tools for enabling human workers to level up their skills and responsibilities. For example, modern cleaning programs are leveraging robotic floor cleaning machines to shoulder the burden of repetitive floor cleaning, freeing workers up to do higher-value tasks. This also gives workers the chance to learn highly transferrable skills around operating leading-edge robotic technologies, and empowers them with valuable technology management skills.

Walking the walk on sustainability

As companies increasingly set ambitious sustainability goals, many are finding it challenging to build comprehensive strategies to hit those goals.

From there, you can build a comprehensive strategy that’s foundational to sustainability and ESG initiatives your company wants to achieve.

Make sure your sustainability strategy considers one of the most direct ways your business impacts the world around you: your facility cleaning program. And make sure that the cleaning program is aligned with the responsible and sustainable priorities your company has set for itself. For more information on how Tennant’s products can support your initiatives and strategies, you can learn how our products can supports certifications and the key benefits in our environmental brochure.

Here’s how Tennant is advancing sustainability from the inside out

Sustainability is essential to our core mission at Tennant Company: To create a cleaner, safer, healthier world. We’re committed to partnering with our customers to drive measurable impacts today and fulfill our ambition to leave spaces and places — and the planet — better than we found them. Earlier this year, we launched a new sustainability strategic framework that further embeds sustainability into our business to drive progress in six key impact areas. Leading the mechanized cleaning industry, Tennant announces goals to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across Scopes 1, 2, and 3 by 2040. To reach net-zero, Tennant plans to make deep emissions cuts across its operations and value chain. To accomplish this, the company expects to:

• Partnering with customers to increase the energy efficiency of Tennant’s portfolio and solutions, which will eliminate GHG emissions during the product’s use phase by 2040.
• Sourcing 100% of electricity from renewable sources across all global facilities by 2030.
• Electrifying 100% of our global fleet by 2040.
• Continuing to invest in energy efficiency initiatives in our facilities and across our operations.
• Collaborating with external groups to drive innovation and technology development to lead the industry toward a cleaner future.

Ready to enhance the sustainability of your cleaning program?

Learn more about sustainable cleaning solutions from Tennant.

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