Commercial cleaning companies can do more than ever before to help businesses achieve their sustainability goals.
Collaboration for a more sustainable tomorrow
Whether it is commercial office high-rises, education campuses, government buildings, or health care facilities, businesses are under increasing pressure to act responsibly and tread lightly. Many are on a journey to improve the environmental impact of their operations and the performance of their facilities.
Effective management of building operations and services is a significant aspect of sustainable performance. Many businesses have programs to reduce their environmental footprint and targets around building carbon emissions, energy, water and waste and more. Effective programs can help them achieve Green Star Performance credits and recognition as a sustainably run building.
This is where facility services partners can make a difference. Whether providing hard services – like HVAC or maintenance, or soft services – such as cleaning or waste, skilled services partners use their expertise and technologies to become drivers for achieving sustainable building operations.
‘Green Cleaning’ is one of the most obvious ways a commercial cleaning business, for example, can ensure an environmentally sound facility. Green cleaning minimises the use of harmful contaminants that can impact indoor environment quality, occupant health and the natural environment. Green cleaning is more than just the use of environmentally friendly chemicals. It involves the adoption and integration of green cleaning principles, processes and monitoring. Correctly applied and measured, green cleaning can also help customers achieve Green Cleaning Performance credit rewards.
In today’s world, commercial cleaning companies have access to incredible new technologies that can improve sustainability outcomes for customer facilities even further. Many emerging technologies in the cleaning industry are proven to reduce air pollution, water use, chemical waste, and energy consumption. GJK, for example, uses robotic AI scrubbing machines in a tertiary setting that use 70% less water than traditional scrubbers and less energy. In the AFR article, Robot revolution a clean sweep for building managers robotics and data are helping organisations become greener, in line with business ESG goals. We also use electric ‘green’ vehicles to transport our operatives around expansive grounds and use 100% chemical-free technologies such as Z-Water.
New technologies are also helping commercial cleaning companies with more sustainable waste management practices. Today’s IoT waste-tech can provide in-depth data on a site’s waste disposal patterns to empower stakeholders for intelligent decision-making that improve waste practices.
GJK harnesses leading waste IoT innovations such as Bintracker to give us and our customers transparency into the recycling and waste habits across their site. Real-time data allow us to track and trend waste stream recycling, enabling us and our customers, to see how well recycling is occurring across different locations and identify cross-contamination. This information allows our customers to hold their tenants (or departments/faculties) accountable for waste-to-landfill. In collaboration with customers, GJK can then establish education/information campaigns to improve outcomes. With the automatic conversion to the NABERS Waste tool, the system also helps customers achieve and maintain NABERs accreditation, and data can contribute to attaining Green Star credits.
Expert cleaning companies also work hand-in-hand with innovative waste companies to develop end-to-end, customized waste management and education programs. They work with customers to continuously improve these outcomes over time, using waste-tech data to help make informed strategic decisions.
Data is indeed king when it comes to improving sustainability outcomes in any workplace. One of the best things about the technology that commercial cleaning companies are bringing into facilities today is the level of insights into ‘the status quo’, establishing a baseline benchmark for improvements.
Further IoT technology used in the Commercial cleaning sector is SMART sensors. This technology helps cleaning operatives know when dispensers need refilling or how many people occupy certain areas in the facility and helps form curated cleaning services. From a sustainability angle, the people-counting data the sensors capture can be shared with building managers, helping them devise energy strategies based on how the facility is used.
Innovations are helping facility service providers reimagine how they can help their customers achieve sustainable building operations. Expert businesses, like GJK, collaborate with their customers, bringing the best people, practices and technologies to achieve sustainability goals smarter and faster.