How BSCs Use Sustainability Programs to Earn Business

Key Takeaways:
• Sustainability in commercial cleaning now extends far beyond green cleaning products.
• Third-party certifications have become essential for proving sustainability and supporting healthier buildings.
• Evolving green building standards are raising expectations for accountability, occupant health, and measurable performance.

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For years, building service contractors (BSCs) believed that if cleaning chemicals carried a green certification, paper products contained recycled content, and equipment used less energy, they had checked the sustainability box. But that’s just the starting point. Today, occupants and customers also want to know how BSCs operate their businesses. Perhaps the biggest question of all: “Does the BSC’s business reflect the client’s values?”

At the same time, shifts in green building and product certification programs—including LEED, WELL, Green Seal, UL ECOLOGO, Fitwel, and others—highlight a trend toward greater transparency, measurable performance, healthier buildings, and stronger organizations.

Know the Difference

Steve Ashkin, President of The Ashkin Group, LLC, has spent over 35 years helping shape the green cleaning movement. But he says it’s time for BSCs to differentiate between green cleaning and sustainability.

“The terms green and sustainability should not be used interchangeably. They are not the same thing,” Ashkin says.

Green cleaning focuses on products and procedures used to clean a building, while sustainability examines an organization’s environmental footprint, business practices, workforce development, governance, and long-term resilience.

Ashkin illustrates the difference with a simple example. A manufacturer may produce Green Seal- or UL ECOLOGO-certified products but still have poor labor practices or weak environmental stewardship. Though their products are green, they are not operating sustainably.

“Customers want to reward businesses that protect the environment in everything they do,” Ashkin says. “They want to work with companies that take care of their workers and play by all the rules.”

Bill McGarvey, Director of Training and Sustainability at Imperial Brady, has watched this evolution from another perspective. After spending over four decades in the professional cleaning industry, including 25 years in operations, McGarvey now helps BSCs navigate the growing number of certifications and sustainability requirements. He says third-party certifications have fundamentally changed the marketplace by replacing marketing claims with measurable standards.

“Manufacturers’ claims, in and of themselves, just don’t cut it anymore,” McGarvey says. “Third-party certification gave assurance that the product had been tested, was preferable from an environmental and health standpoint, and that they worked."

Now, as customers shift their expectations toward sustainability, they seek documented proof— not marketing language—that BSCs meet identified green building and sustainability goals.

Program Evolution

Whether it’s LEED, WELL, Fitwel, Green Seal, UL ECOLOGO, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Safer Choice program, today’s sustainability initiatives emphasize measurable business performance, healthier buildings, and greater transparency.

LEED v5, the latest version of the LEED green building standard, emphasizes decarbonization, resilience, and quality of life. WELL has expanded its focus to include occupant health and wellbeing, while Fitwel emphasizes healthier buildings and operational performance.

On the product side, Green Seal and UL ECOLOGO are raising expectations for safer chemistry and lifecycle performance. Green Seal recently strengthened its standards by prohibiting intentionally added per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in several product categories. PFAS have earned the nickname “forever chemicals” and are targeted by certifying bodies because they resist heat, oil, and water, making them difficult to break down.

EPA’s Safer Choice program also appears poised for long-term growth. After uncertainty surrounding its future, bipartisan legislation introduced in June by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, would formally authorize the program and reinforce its role in identifying products with safer chemical ingredients.

According to Coons’ office, the bill would also strengthen protections against conflict of interest in product reviews, keep the EPA’s Safer Chemicals Ingredients list up to date, and support transparency and the public’s access to product information.

The key message for BSCs is that certification programs are moving toward enhanced accountability, occupant well-being, and superior organizational outcomes.

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Sustainability Drives Competition in Commercial Cleaning Space