Washington, DC — October 30, 2007. Green Seal, Inc. has announced that three cleaning services, in Wisconsin, Maryland, and Washington, have been awarded certification under GS-42, its environmental standard for green cleaning services that help protect human health and the environment. After a stringent application process and an on-site audit, three major US cleaning services are now licensed to provide a Green Seal-certified service to their customers.
“Certification under GS-42 proves that a service uses products and equipment that have less impact on the environment, and has adopted processes and procedures that help protect the health of workers as well as building occupants,” said Mark Petruzzi, Green Seal VP of Certification. Green cleaning—high performance cleaning that helps protect health and the environment—is in demand. Many contractors are claiming to offer a “green” service. Now, with Green Seal™ certification, building and facility managers can be assured that they are hiring a service that is truly green in every key aspect of its operation.
GS-42 Certified Cleaning Companies
Green Seal is pleased at the response from the cleaning industry to be GS-42 certified. CleanPower LLC is the first building service contractor in the US to achieve Green Seal Certification. CleanPower is the largest full-service cleaning contractor in Wisconsin and employs more than 2,225 people in over 600 locations. CleanPower offers the EmeraldSolutions Green Seal-certified janitorial service.
ABM Janitorial Services-Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a subsidiary of ABM Industries Inc., has been certified for its Green Care Service program at Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle. ABM Janitorial Services is an international company based in San Francisco, CA with branch offices located across the United States and British Columbia, Canada. With over 95 years of facility cleaning experience, they provide a full range of cleaning services throughout the industrial, institutional, and commercial sectors.
CJ Maintenance’s Environmentally Preferred Green Cleaning Solution cleaning program is the first cleaning service on the east coast to achieve Green Seal certification. Based in Columbia, MD, CJ Maintenance employs over 600 workers and has provided cleaning services to building owners and management companies along the Baltimore-Washington corridor since 1985.
The Scope and Implications of GS-42
The standard establishes requirements for both in-house and contract cleaning services. Green cleaning encompasses all indoor activities typically required to clean commercial, public and industrial buildings.
GS-42 Certified services [l1] can not only have greater peace of mind by doing the right thing for employees and customers, but obtain a stronger market position. Since GS-42 is a third-party, science-based, environmental leadership standard, being GS-42 certified sets a cleaning operation apart from others. Not every cleaning service will qualify, and this makes GS-42 certification special and ultimately valuable as a differentiator and marketing tool.
Residential cleaning is not covered by GS-42. Links to the new certified services can be found at http://www.greenseal.org/findaproduct/index.cfm#cleaningservices. More information is available on the Green Seal Web site: http://www.greenseal.org
About Green Seal
The non-profit Green Seal, based in Washington D.C. has been identifying products and services that protect people and the environment from toxic chemicals, noxious fumes and wasted resources since 1989. Using a life-cycle assessment based system, Green Seal is the premier independent ecolabel in the U.S. and helps define what “green” really means, guiding consumers and purchasers to make the right choice.