GreenClean Education
LWC Consultants Ltd is delighted to welcome its very first guest blogger. A hearty welcome to Dave Thompson, President of Green Clean Institute (GCI), who brings us a fascinating insight to the work GCI has been carrying out in schools and how this filters into life and workplace attitudes on the environment.
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Over the past 25 years, I have worked with educational facilities predominately and in all this time I have worked with clients to improve the conditions of the existing indoor environments. Recently I had the opportunity to speak to a group of 7th graders from one of the schools using our Green Clean Institute (GCI) educational programs.
It was great to hear the teacher and staff already knew something about Green Cleaning before I arrived as they are involved in working with the custodial staff as a result of their participation in the “Final Five”. This refers to the final five minutes of the school day where in every classroom the students stack the stand alone chairs and move them to the back of the classroom and pick up any major debris. At GCI, we educate students of our courses that Green Cleaning is in part a team cleaning program. Communication and participation by the building occupants are paramount to a successful and efficient operation. This was clearly understood by this group of children at this middle school.
Education does not stop when you graduate, high school or college. However, it has been my experience that this is precisely what happens. Once we enter the job market Education changes to “On the Job Training” (OJT). Many times this comes with inherent issues such as the proliferation of habits. At GCI we focus on educating the frontline worker as to the “Why’s” of Green Cleaning and how this will have a positive impact on our personal health. During the two 20 minute sessions with these students, they learned a few things about just what we do once they leave the building.
They were very interested in the science and technology which is being used to provide safe surfaces and atmosphere within the building they use all day long. They saw the use of an ATP meter which we use to test the microbial removal of the Green Cleaning products and practices being used in this school district. Children are the ones more at risk to the lingering effects of what we use and they understood that Green Cleaning was cleaning to reduce those impacts. What GCI students learn is that reducing these impacts for others also provide a better working atmosphere for them as well.
These students were able to see how we use modern communications to reach around the globe and how this is not just an issue within their local environment. Cleaning for appearance is not cleaning for health. I have said for nearly a decade, “To say a building is clean does not mean it is healthy, however if a building is healthy; It is clean”.
In an effort to help individuals, organizations and operations figure out what shade of Green Cleaning they are providing, we have the 180 Degree Self Assessment program. This is engineered as a checklist complete with a points reward system for you to identify what your building, program or operation is currently doing right. We all like to know what we are doing compared to others and this will outline it for you.
We encourage you to take a look and see where you feel you are in your efforts to provide that safe, healthy facility through your programs. There is a global need to have a foundation of Green awareness by which we all can build from. Greenwashing has unfortunately now become an increasing issue as more and more operations claim to provide Green and Healthy services, however their gauge for these claims are many times based on just having a certified product or using a HEPA vacuum. While both are good attributes, a Green program they do not make.
I would like to thank Lynn Webster, a fellow IEHA member, for letting me be a guest blogger on her new website and we look forward to introducing you to all of the Green Clean Education we have to offer. We are a worldwide operation with organizations applying this Green education throughout Africa, Canada, the Middle East and the United States; and soon in the UK. You can learn more about us at http://www.greencleaninstitute.co.uk/ and join our network of over 3000 individuals and 400 certified firms who are “Changing the Notion about Cleaning, for Health”.
Dave Thompson
GCI-President
This entry was posted on Monday, February 27th, 2012 at 12:28 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
