Will "green" continue to be the preeminent buzz in the cleaning industry, or do you see other issues that might become the new "hot buttons" of the industry?

Matt Wood
CEO and President
ProTeam
Boise, Idaho

Green is an important focus, but we believe, especially in a budget-focused economic environment, that productivity will take a more central role in the collective cleaning mind. Cleaning contractors will continue to evaluate and examine the long-term cost and efficiency of the different products, equipment and practices they utilize.

Gus Calabro
Marketing and R&D
Merfin Systems
King, N.C.

Environmental changes remains an increasing concern in the 21st century, "green" products and practices will continue to be in the spotlight of our industry. Merfin Systems is committed to environmentally safe products.

Tom Morrison
Vice President of Marketing
Kaivac Inc.
Hamilton, Ohio

Without question, green will continue to be a major force in the professional cleaning industry. However, the entire industry has been taking steps to become more environmentally responsible and sustainable for a number of years now. Possibly "green" should no longer be viewed as a "buzzword," but a mainstay instead.

What we do see emerging as key concerns for our end customers are a much greater emphasis on cleaning for health and what we call hygienic cleaning, as well as finding ways to enhance worker productivity. It is because of recent world events that these issues have resurfaced.

Taking steps to prevent H1N1 is on everyone's mind, including schools, which is one of our largest market segments. School districts have become very concerned about having their facilities cleaned as hygienically as possible and they want this accomplished without turning to powerful chemicals that might have a negative impact on the environment.

Additionally, many school districts have reduced their budgets for cleaning and, in some cases, this means reducing their cleaning staff. This means the only way these customers can meet their cleaning needs, maintain their schools in a clean, healthy, hygienic manner, and improve worker productivity is to:

•  Replace manual cleaning systems (mops, buckets, sprayers, cleaning rags) with faster and more thorough mechanized cleaning systems, and

•  Transfer to multipurpose machines that can help cleaning professionals be more efficient, productive and service more areas of a building, without the need for expensive, single-purposed equipment.