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What is the effect of the Green Cleaning movement on the janitorial industry? The facts are clean that the cleaning and janitorial world is in transition, and it will be forever changed to what will come to be known as the Green Janitorial era. How people transition to this new status will differ, and there will be those who try to ignore it until the Green practice is literally forced on them by mandate.

What will drive this movement is the demand for Green offices and Green buildings. One interesting example is the state of Florida that passed a ruling that withheld state business from any hotel that did not qualify as a Green hotel. The affect was immediate and profound as the state is a significant part of Florida hotel revenue.

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.

Where governments go, business will follow. Right now, we are seeing city after city planning for a complete Green renovation of all city buildings. On the federal level, Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush have signed executive orders mandating that all federal agency to Go Green by using Green products and Green practices. Therefore, we see the Green pressure at the federal, state, local, and corporate levels. These obvious trends are why many experts are predicting that all businesses will be going green in the next two to three years.

Beware of Green pretenders, however. Many janitorial services are using token efforts to participate in this new, Green economy. They are adding a few Green products to their janitor cart and they will pick up some HEPA vacuums as the older models wear out. The fact is that you cannot buy Green in a bottle. It is a practice as much as it is the product being used. When all janitorial services have adding in a few Green products, we will reach something called “Green Equalization” where all look alike but none are fully qualified.

Does a janitorial service need to go though training and certification from an outside source, or can they simple step into this arena as simply as reworking their website and advertising? As in any profession, there must be a standard in training and review that supports the claims of a professional service. Hey, even car mechanics are trained and certified. Shouldn’t we expect that a firm in charge of the health and sanitation of the building do more than hand the work crew new products?

Green Seal certifies products, but Green Clean Institute certifies janitorial services. If your company is “Going Green,” you will want to look into the GCI Green Building program. You should also require that your janitorial/cleaning service become Green Clean certified as well. Frankly, there is no substitute for the quality, training, support, and certification of Green Clean Institute. As the largest certification organization for janitorial services, Green Clean Institute is the best resource for Green Business.

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.