Most cleaning services are mistaken about the nature of Green cleaning.  And the confusion is understandable.  Some Green promoter tout energy efficiency and LED lights.  Others loudly promote construction of Green buildings.  What about recycling and waste disposal?  There's carbon footprint, source reduction, recycling program, transportation, plastic bottles, and worries about deforestation.  No wonder we are so very confused about our part in the solution.

So, here is how you start.  Understand that "Green is about the Health of Living Things"

And, "Sustainability is about the Physical Resources of our World"

This is a great starting point because you can now determine your actions on the two great environmental concerns.  

First, ask the Green Question: "Does this Help of Hurt People and Living Things"

Second, as the Sustainability Question:  "Does this Help or Hurt the Resources around me?"

It doesn't have to be any more complicated than these two questions although drilling down into specific items may take some time.  Just use these questions to address items around you that you can control.  The process works best when we can reduce complex decisions to the core issue.  Does any decision "Help or Hurt" people or community?

At the Green Clean Institute, we bring these two questions to our industry.  Why the cleaning services?  Well, it is the one process that is common to every family, workplace, school, office building, or shopping center.  

Cleaning is the obvious starting points for health.  To prove the point, imagine any building or city where cleaning is neglected.  What follows is trash, filth, vermin, and disease.  Life becomes unmanageable without a persistent cleaning program.  We need clean water, uncontaminated food, sanitation from germs, clean clothes, and trash removal.  

If Green is about Health, then our cleaning program is not just about cleaning, but making our facilities a healthy place to live and function.

Now, sustainability is similar but looks around people to question how we manage our world.  Every society is wasteful, produces pollution, destroys things.  The smarter part of the population tries to be less wasteful, less polluting, and less destructive.  How we treat the resources of this world comes back to complicate our lives in a big way.

Right now, Green and sustainable programs are random and rare.  They happen in irregular patterns, and very few people appreciate what is being done.  

Cleaning is predictable and universal.  This is the best starting point because it is common to all our lives and businesses, and we can actually make incremental and progressive steps to improve our immediate and future condition.  

The Green Clean Institute is promoting the Twenty Elements for Green Cleaning Services.  By offering training and certification to the workers and firms doing the daily work of cleaning, we have at least one aspect of eco-participation that everyone can share and everyone can benefit.