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In the 1990's and even into the early part of this decade, a distributor could clearly differentiate from the competition simply by carrying a line of Green cleaning products. And even at this, they might simply carry a simple line of green chemicals and nothing else.
However over the past few years as the Green cleaning Movement has grown and more distributors have begun offering green products, the issue has clearly changed. These changes have been based on their growing understanding of how environmental and health impacts can be reduced from all the products that they sell.
This has also been coupled with a growing awareness from customers of green and green buildings, plus the development of a number of "road maps" such as the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED for Existing Buildings Rating System that has made it easy for customers to identify what constitutes a complete Green cleaning program.
A deeper shade of 'Green'
Today, distributors seem to be going through a progression that continually darkens their 'shade of Green'. The first step begins by just carrying a single line of green chemicals and then expanding the green chemical program, and from there developing a more complete bundle of green products including recycled paper products and trash liners, microfiber cloths and flat mops, high quality entrance matting, high-efficiency vacuum cleaners and innovative equipment such as hand-free and vapor cleaning systems, and more.
Interestingly, many of distributors while even carrying a complete line of Green cleaning products often remained quite passive in their sales efforts and often relied upon the customer to request them, rather than proactively selling green programs.
As distributors become more focused on the success of their green programs, many establish green areas within their showrooms and create specific literature and catalogs to make it easier for both their sales people and their customers to switch to green products.
A further step for distributors is to become even more proactive by conducting green educational events for their customers and prospects, and to begin positioning themselves as the "expert" and not merely relying on their suppliers for advice on Green cleaning. This is especially valuable for distributors in geographies where multiple competitors have begun selling green.
Focus on education
The Green cleaning movement continues to mature and has led to the recognition that while switching to Green products is a good thing, but the real goal is to create healthier more productive buildings for the occupants. And to accomplish this, Green products must be combined with effective training and processes with appropriate staffing levels.
As a result, there is a growing end-user focus on education on Green cleaning in general and effective cleaning in particular, as well as on organizations and their Green programs like those from the U.S. Green Building Council and their LEED for Existing Buildings Rating System, Healthy Schools Campaign's Quick & Easy Guide to Green Cleaning in Schools, and Hospitals for a Healthy Environment's 10 Step Guide to Implementing Green Cleaning which have all proven to be very helpful because these are the programs of interest to customers.
But as more and more distributors invest in complete Green product lines and have trained their sales reps, the requirements continue to expand driven by an increasingly knowledgeable customer. To this end, customers are beginning to expect that their suppliers themselves are green, not merely the products and programs they supply. To put it simply, customers want to buy Green products from Green companies.
To meet this need and for distributors to continually evolve and move forward on their Green journey, they themselves have started implementing Green strategies. Some of the early opportunities included greening their own internal operations, such as setting the default on printers and copying machines to double-sided in an effort to reduce paper use, using recycled office products such as copier paper and toner cartridges, printing sales and other materials on recycled paper, and developing their own internal recycling programs.
Implement energy conservation projects
Other opportunities for distributors include energy conservation projects such as relamping the warehouse with energy-efficient lighting fixtures and using compact fluorescent bulbs in other fixtures, installing curtain doors on overhead doors to reduce heating or cooling loss, and using occupancy sensors to reduce energy requirements all of which can result in dramatic reductions in energy use and save distributors considerable money.
Distributors can also reduce their water use by installing automated faucets and flush values in restrooms, waterless urinals and reducing water used for landscaping by installing drip irrigation systems and native plants that frequently use less water.
As distributors move further down this path to becoming a green company, some are beginning to actually have their buildings LEED "certified" to clearly demonstrate that they are actually "walking the talk", as well as their knowledge of the LEED program.
And as climate change and global warming comes to the forefront, leading distributors will look at their delivery trucks, as well as the vehicles used by their sales people to reduce emissions, which is a major contributor to this problem. Distributors are finding ways to reduce emissions through more efficient delivery routes, manage their customer's supplies and cleaning schedules to reduce the frequency of deliveries, and to encourage the use of hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles such as those using biodiesel made from soy and other vegetable oils or ethanol.
In the future, the cleaning industry will begin to emerge as a leader among all industry segments. One of the areas where distributors will demonstrate this leadership is in the effort to pioneer the product "take-back" issue, which simply refers to "taking products back" from consumers and returning them to the original manufacturer for remanufacturing or recycling.
Distributors are perfectly situated to do so because trucks are already stopping at customers who can accumulate specific products which can be collected and subsequently returned to the manufacturer or recycled with little added cost and with significant environmental benefits. Take-back programs are predicted as a good opportunity to further differentiate one distributor from another, and to demonstrate that they indeed are not just a supplier of green products, but in fact a green company themselves.
A 25+ year veteran of the cleaning industry, Stephen Ashkin is the author of Green Cleaning for Dummies and an advocate for environmentally preferable cleaning products. Often referred to as the "father of green cleaning," Ashkin has played a pivotal role in setting industry standards, promoting environmentally preferable products, and advocating for socially responsible practices. For more information or to subscribe to Ashkin's e-newsletter, DestinationGreen, visit www.ashkingroup.com.
author: BY STEPHEN ASHKIN