Before the Performance Period

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• To write a program that will work for your building, take stock of what you already have implemented and identify where you will need to improve or change your practices to meet the requirements.

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• Consider incorporating all of the components of a green cleaning policy and a green cleaning program into one comprehensive policy-program document. You can find a template for this in the Documentation Toolkit.

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• Evaluate your project building's current cleaning-related practices, procedures, and methods. You will need to work with the various managers responsible for individual components of the cleaning program in order to evaluate the following. 

  • Purchasing of cleaning, hard-floor, and carpet-care products (including chemicals, janitorial paper products and trash bags, and microfiber products) 
  • Purchasing of cleaning equipment 
  • Standard operating procedures 
  • Use of chemical concentrates and dilution systems 
  • Current hand-hygiene strategies 
  • Chemical storage and handling
  • Maintenance staff training procedures and curriculum 
  • Current staffing plans 
  • Collection of occupant feedback and complaints

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• To evaluate your standard operating procedures, obtain a copy of the current procedures and review them. If you’ve never formalized your procedures, consider ways that you might minimize toxic chemical applications and the use of energy-intensive equipment.  

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• Ultimately you may have to revamp your procedures to reflect core principles of green cleaning, including the following. 

  • Minimal-to-no use of potentially harmful and irritating chemicals. 
  • Removal or elimination of dirt, dust, and other contaminants (as contrasted with dusting and similar traditional approaches to contaminants). 
  • Protection and preservation of surfaces during cleaning (particularly hard floors and carpets). 
  • Proactive strategies to reduce contaminant infiltration at the sources (such as walk-off mats). 
  • Procedures should identify occupants who are disproportionately affected by cleaning practices and propose methods to minimize impacts on those groups. (These methods may include adjustments to cleaning procedures, frequencies, timing, product choices, or similar adaptations.

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• To evaluate your strategies for using chemical concentrates and dilution systems, work with the management of the cleaning program to determine whether they use such systems. If they don’t, work with them to identify opportunities for using chemical concentrates and work with suppliers to bring in several options for a trial run before you commit to a single system. 

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• To evaluate your strategies for promoting hand hygiene, determine whether your soaps currently contain antimicrobial agents (other than as a preservative). If they do contain anti-microbial agents, work with your supplier to identify a hand soap that does not contain antimicrobial agents. Other strategies include educating staff about proper hand cleaning and providing occupants with hand sanitizers.

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• To evaluate your methods for handling and storing cleaning chemicals, ask the personnel in charge about their current practices. If you find that some of these existing practices can be improved, work with management to alter their practices. 

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• To evaluate your training curriculum for cleaning personnel, find out what trainings the personnel currently attend (your vendor or the management may have records of the trainings). 

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• If you find that cleaning personnel do not receive regular trainings, work with management to institute regular trainings that address the specific products, equipment, and procedures used in your project building; the environmental and health issues associated with the chemicals, materials and equipment they are using; and personnel responsibilities and management expectations as they relate to the green cleaning program. 

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• To evaluate how you collect occupants’ feedback on the green cleaning program, talk to management to determine how this is done.  

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• In many cases, you’ll find that the work order system is the best way to collect and respond to occupant feedback about the cleaning program. This type of system certainly meets the credit requirements.

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• To determine how you evaluate new technologies, procedures, and processes, discuss strategies with your vendor and suppliers, as they often have ways of keeping abreast of the latest technologies.

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• Focus on evaluating your current practices for sustainability opportunities. Rather than limiting your process by merely comparing your program to LEED requirements, think more broadly about ways to expand and improve. 

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• Determine the necessary changes and establish who will be responsible for making them. For example, in some buildings, one staff member is in charge of purchasing, while another oversees the cleaning crew. Depending on the size and scale of your project building, there may be one or several responsible parties. 

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• In a multi-tenant building where the tenants are responsible for their own cleaning programs, complying with this credit requires coordination with tenant cleaning services, as the green cleaning program must be implemented in at least 90% of the occupied areas. 

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• This credit overlaps a great deal with the requirements of IEQp3: Green Cleaning Policy. Project teams often deal with the overlap by developing one document that addresses both policy requirements and the green cleaning program credit. 

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• Cleaning contracts should include explicit language describing the contractor's role and your expectations for vendor contributions to LEED documentation.

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• The requirement to have an "appropriate staffing plan" is fairly vague. To meet this requirement, the project team should document that they have an appropriate amount of staff time for staff trained in the green cleaning procedures used in the building—this will vary by building and the nature of its cleaning program.

   

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• Your green cleaning policy must meet the minimum content requirements for LEED policies and programs. Keep in mind that to achieve both the prerequisite and credit, you need to include all of the required components of both policies and plans. 

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• The LEED EBOM Policy and Program Model lays out all of the required components of the policies, plans, and programs that you develop and write as part of your  documentation. Because you are creating a comprehensive document that covers the prerequisite (policy) requirements and credit (program) requirements, you will want to include all of the components for each of these types of documents, including: 

  • Scope
  • Performance metrics/measurement
  • Goals
  • Procedures
  • Responsible parties
  • Time period
  • Guidance for resources and implementation
  • Quality assurance/quality control processes.

   

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• Although many elements of green cleaning policies and programs are directly transferable between projects, the expectation is that they will be building-specific—don’t expect to simply cut and paste from another project submission or have a vendor deliver a complete documentation package. 

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• Your green cleaning policy and program should be created by in-house staff and vendor representatives familiar with, and responsible for, the process of maintaining the project site. Consequently, there should be minimal cost associated with creating the documentation—other than the time commitment of the personnel involved. 

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• Revising vendor contracts and implementing environmental best management practices also should entail only minimal cost. 

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• Green cleaning products are readily available and generally cost-neutral compared to conventional products. 

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• Be sure to specifically address all of the following issues in your comprehensive green cleaningGreen cleaning is the use of cleaning products and practices that have lower environmental impacts and more positive indoor air quality impacts than conventional products and practices. document:

  • hand hygiene strategies
  • handling of occupant feedback
  • staffing plans
  • use of dilution systems.