GCI Green Building
The janitorial industry might be the last place you might think of nationwide innovation, but the janitorial business is in transition as the Green movement takes over. This is no longer an obscure industry of brooms, mops, and trash removal. Things are changing rapidly and the Green market has brought new value to every janitorial service that cleans our schools, homes, offices, and factories. The reason is that the janitorial service is the starting point of Green operation.
The increased demand for Green Offices, Green Schools, and Green Buildings will continue to drive this concept. Governor Christ of Florida has passed rules that denied state business from any hotel that did not qualify as a Green facility. The impact was felt immediately as all Florida hotels implemented Green practices with haste. Similar rules are coming to other states.
The states of New York and Illinois passed similar versions of a Green School Act mandating that all schools adopt Green products and Green practices in the cleaning of their buildings. New York has now mandated that all building owners take their buildings to a Green status by May of 2009. Other states will soon follow, and you see that the smaller market share for Green services will soon explode into the majority of all janitorial accounts.
You already know that Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13101 that required all government agencies and building to install Green products and services. George W Bush signed another executive order strengthening Green requirements in government facilities. Already, cities like New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Dallas, and Fort Lauderdale are promoting their cities as “Green Cities” asking all companies and corporations to “Go Green.” You can easily see why knowledgeable people are predicting that the Green market will take over all businesses in the next two years.
This new economy will bring what I call Green Pretenders who will take only token efforts to be Green but will declare that they are the real Green janitorial service. You see, Green does not come in a bottle but in the service that uses the Green product. When all janitorial services have a few Green products and some HEPA vacuums, we will see what I also call the “Green Equalization.” This means that there will be plenty of look-alike Green firms, but not of them are qualified professionally.
Green clean training and certification is the only way to prove which service is Green and which is pretending to be Green. Green Clean Institute is the best and most reliable source for Green Clean training and certification offering a federal trademark program and a national status recognized by Dun and Bradstreet. To understand the concept of certification, it is important that a credible third party establish a standard and a course of study to attain the listed certification. This is why self-appointed Green firms are ineffective. There is no standardization, and private claims can be readily compromised by those seeking only to use it in a competitive manner.
Green Clean Institute has one of the largest student bodies of any comparable program with over 500 students nationally, as well was several international students. Recently, Green Clean Institute - Canada″ has been established to bring the same training and certification to the Canadian janitorial and cleaning firms. If your company plans to “Go Green,” we suggest that you start at the most logical process in your building … the cleaning service.
Unfortunately, many otherwise intelligent people mistaken use the word Green as a synonym for environmentalism. This is a mistake since Green is always a health-related topic. The LEED program adds to this confusion by including items like energy and water conservation, building materials, and access to public transportation into their version of the Green Building. Green Clean Institute believes that the Green Building should focus on indoor air quality and the health concerns of the people who live, shop, or work in the facility.
Like it or not, this is a world in serious transition from the standard practices of the past to the new and intelligent practices of a better today. People worldwide have chosen not to defer the duties of clean and healthy world to their children. Things change, and this is a change that is good for all of us. It leaves only a question of whether people will wait for the government to force them to Go Green, or whether they will step up to the challenge voluntarily.
