Several attendees to the recent ISSA/INTERCLEAN tradeshow in Las Vegas reported that Green cleaning did not appear to be as significant this year as in the past.
Some distributors and manufacturers believe this is because many end customers are now more concerned about saving green than going Green.
However, other studies indicate the selection of environmentally preferable cleaning chemicals will grow significantly in the next few years.
To analyse the current state of Green affairs, Enviro-Solutions, manufacturer of Green cleaning chemicals from its inception, asked its some 250 distributors and sales representatives what they see happening in the Green marketplace.*
When asked, “Approximately what percentages of your customers are now selecting only Green cleaning chemicals,” just 5% said their clients select only Green cleaning products.
The rest indicated their clients select a combination of Green and conventional cleaning products in varying degrees.
“This has been somewhat of a holding pattern for the past couple of years,” says Mike Sawchuk, Enviro-Solutions’ vice president.
“However, for certain types of facilities like schools and universities, the movement to [purchasing] exclusively Green cleaning products has grown. We see this occurring among some cleaning contractors as well.”
Other findings include:
*Most end customers (67%) do not ask about the ingredients in Green cleaning products.
*Nearly 70% of the distributors say they stress the potential economic benefits of Green cleaning products (i.e., improved worker productivity, less absenteeism, etc.).
*Nearly three-quarters of the reps and distributors offer to train custodial workers on how to use Green cleaning products.
*85% say some training on how to use Green cleaning chemicals is necessary.
*80% believe Green cleaning has elevated the role of cleaning workers.
“The study also found more than three-quarters of custodial workers are still reluctant to change to Green cleaning products,” says Sawchuk. “But once they have, fully 85% say they like them.”
*This is not a scientific study. Of the 250 invitations to take the survey, 83 people participated and answered all or most of the questions. All responses were included in the final tabulation. All percentages are rounded.