The attention towards sustainability emerged in 1987 after the Brundtland report and has since influenced organisations to improve their efforts. By 2024, government regulations have tightened, competition has intensified, and consumer pressure has risen.
From sourcing materials, collaborating with sustainable partners, educating staff and tracking and reporting sustainability goals. By utilising these practices, cleaning companies like us can meet the growing industry demands all whilst making a true positive impact.
What does it mean to have a Sustainable Supply Chain?
A sustainable supply chain integrates environmental, social, and economic responsibility into each stage of an organisation’s supply chain. Utilising a sustainable supply chain approach benefits your organisation by fostering a resilient mindset, supports social wellbeing, minimises environmental footprint and reduces other negative impacts across the lifecycle of your service.
As a cleaning company it is our role to help maintain cleanliness and hygiene. Which is why in the cleaning industry it is highly important to keep our supply chain as sustainable as possible to protect our staff and public health, minimise our environmental impact and create positive leading change. We have seen first hand that having a sustainable supply chain can strengthen the relationships we have between our stakeholders, creating a more trusting and loyal partnership.
How To Build a Sustainable Supply Chain
Adopting solutions that allow you to foster a sustainable supply chain goes beyond only sourcing eco-friendly products. To make a real impact, your organisation will need to select only suppliers who uphold ethical practices reduce waste and conserve resources, select energy-efficient equipment, educate staff, and honestly track and report your sustainability journey.
Collaboration with Sustainable Partners
To build a sustainable supply chain, your partners also prioritise their environmental and social impact. Partnering with suppliers and service providers who share the same values can impact the industry’s environmental footprint, creates a larger network of like-minded stakeholders and reduce carbon emissions. Research on products may also identify the suppliers who share similar priorities, extending the supply chain.
Updating your partners is one of the more crucial parts of ensuring that you’re making the most of the relationship. Hosting meetings, catch-up calls and inviting those to company events helps to keep stakeholder up to date with the lifecycle of your company and solidifies the relationship, helping them feel involved. To build a long-term relationship, for us, meeting with our stakeholder’s one-to-one works best, allowing us to foster a positive connected relationship. Regular engagement can open discussions of new practices and expectations which can foster innovation and drive continuous improvements.
Sourcing Eco-Friendly Products
Sourcing eco-friendly products begins with thorough research to ensure that the cleaning products and equipment meet environmentally friendly criteria. Often, products that are eco-friendly will have eco-certifications that guarantee they are free from harmful chemicals and produced with minimal environmental impact. Investing time and money into researching suppliers that don’t use harsh chemicals and share similar priorities will identify high-quality products that perform well whilst aligning with your sustainability goals.
Products such as cloths, sprays, sponges, wipes, brushes, can all be harmful to the environment. Selecting organic or bio-based cleaning materials can help assist in keeping staff healthy, by not leaving traces of toxic residue, as well as driving the eco-friendly supply chain goal. Many chemicals used in popular cleaning products are not eco-friendly and can cause harm to not only the environment but the user. Chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide, citric acid, and lactic acid are popular eco-friendly options.
Reducing Waste in the Supply Chain
In order to be sustainable, it is crucial to ensure that you and your suppliers reduce as much waste as possible. Reducing the waste your company produce can enhance operational efficiency and cost effectiveness whilst adding value to both you and clients.
There are many ways to reduce waste within your supply chain and can be achieved by implementing the following:
Sustainable Packaging; Sustainable product containers can reduce the need for single-use plastics. Many suppliers now offer alternative, more sustainable packaging such as glass, stainless steel and bamboo. As well as the packaging being a sustainable material, packaging can also be refillable. These can allow companies to reuse containers instead of discarding and replacing them, optimising your operations.
Bulk Purchasing; Bulk purchasing products can minimise deliveries, helping lower transport emissions and reduce the amount of packaging I used to ship items.
Review Delivery Procedure; Opting for a local supplier for products can cut down on the carbon emissions for delivery and any necessary returns. An On-Demand delivery service cuts out the need for couriers to attempt a redelivery is the first delivery is not successful. Ensuring deliveries are received on the first delivery attempt reduces the transport emissions.
Energy-Efficient Equipment Choices
Energy-Efficient Equipment By partnering with a supplier who produce energy efficient equipment and rolling the equipment out to clients will create an all-round eco-friendly supply chain. Innovative products, such as IoT, are getting more and more popular as the need for minimal environmental impact is becoming more vital. Modern equipment is designed to consumer less power due to their advanced energy-saving features. Although these products may have a higher upfront cost, the long-term savings on energy make it a worthwhile investment.
Educating Staff
To begin making a Sustainable Cleaning Supply Chain, it is important that all employees are on board and the vision is shared throughout. In depth training programmes when onboarding employees is key to driving the focus of any company mission. When staff get a strong understanding of the companies’ values from the start, they are more likely to adopt these practices in their day-to-day activities.
Staff training on sustainable practices can be done internally as well as externally, whichever route you take, having a dedicated spokesperson available to employees at all times is crucial. Implementation of regular training sessions or seminars, after the first onboarding session will solidify the mission and help employees stay up to date. These will also help boost employee morale, build a strong team relationship, and create internal ambassadors.
Tracking and Reporting on Sustainability Goals
Measuring goals and setting targets is essential to assessing whether the strategies are benefiting the overall vision. By setting clear goals and tracking the progress of them, companies can hold themselves accountable and demonstrate their efforts to other stakeholders. Transparency on the status of goals and reporting will also foster a sense of trust between you and your stakeholders and demonstrate a genuine commitment to sustainable practices, encouraging them to follow suit.
External tools and frameworks are available to help organisations measure their sustainability efforts and help create set goals. Third parties are also available and can help organisations reduce carbon emissions and achieve net zero targets by offering certifications, consultations, tracking and awards. This can also be done internally by following free frameworks such as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) in cleaning, to identify specific KPI’s.
Building a sustainable professional cleaning supply chain requires commitment with an effective strategic approach. This process is a continuous journey, as more innovative solutions are discovered and new practices emerge, the professional cleaning industry must remain flexible. Utilising these solutions will improve your organisations supply chain sustainability, which in turn will contribute to a cleaner, greener future, working towards a sustainable future.
To learn more about how we are improving our supply chain and our Beyond Cleaning strategy click here.
Get in Touch
With more than 50 years of dedicated experience, we have tried and tested a large scale of cleaning solutions.
By taking pride in how we deliver our services, we can maintain our clients’ premises to the highest standards with confidence. Understanding your goals, we adopt a collaborative and transparent approach to achieve the best experience for all.
If you’re looking for a professional cleaning company that will positively impact your cleaning supply chain, get in touch with our friendly support team today. You can give us a call on 01279 944332 or email helpdesk@doccleaning.com and we will get back to you within 48 hours.