ECJ EUROPEAN Cleaning Journal

The impact you have on the world is changing. Are you taking advantage of it? As an industry, we need to change how we think and talk about cleaning, says Malene Thiele, global director, ESG & sustainability at Nilfisk.

Global warming and the extreme weather events often linked to it are key reasons why. Because no matter where we live, we’ve entered an era of extreme weather. Along with its challenges, extreme weather brings transformation and changes the impact of our industry. She tells us why in the first of an exclusive series of articles for ECJ.

WHEN I BROWSED through the aisles of the CMS international trade fair for cleaning and hygiene in Berlin last year, I was bombarded with solutions to clean just about anything more sustainably. There were demonstrations, testimonials and functional sustainability guarantees. This product would save me that amount of electricity, water, or detergent. Or that product was made with this percentage of recycled plastic.

And that’s a good place to start. But it’s far from where we must go. Yes, our products and service offerings need documented, radically enhanced sustainability profiles. It is the least that customers can expect of our industry – and the least that we can expect of ourselves.

However, focusing only on the functional aspects of our products when it comes to sustainability merely scratches the surface of a powerful environmental agenda. What’s more, it vastly underestimates the powerful business potential of that agenda.

In addressing climate change we play an important role as an industry, both in mitigation and in adaption. The World Economic Forum’s 2023 ‘Future of Jobs’ survey furthermore shows that businesses predict the strongest net job-creation effect to be driven by investments that facilitate the green transition of businesses, a broader application of environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards, and more localised supply chains.

Extreme weather

In my opinion expanding our focus on sustainability is a task we cannot afford to ignore. Because the winds of change have, quite literally, begun to blow.

The era of extreme weather has begun. During the summer of 2023, did you at some point think “What is up with this weather?“ Not just in Europe, but all over the world, this past summer set some disturbing global records. According to scientists at NASA, it was Earth’s hottest summer since global record keeping began in 1880.

But the summer of 2023 wasn’t just a scorcher. If June and July were hot, August was windy. Then September was wet, and when it rained it poured. Rain fell in volumes rarely seen in the Mediterranean region, causing floods and extreme downpours elsewhere.

The thing is, we need to get used to these types of extreme weather events – even the thunderstorms that in July dumped hail the size of tennis balls in Italy. With global warming and El Niño, we have entered an era of extreme weather.

Where does this leave the professional cleaning industry? In what could be a very impactful place indeed, I think.

Clean is changing

Our industry’s impact on the societies and communities we serve is changing. With global warming and more extreme weather events, our customers need swift, reliable cleaning for more reasons than ever:

• To limit the damage caused by extreme weather
• To limit the spread of infectious diseases
• To safeguard our customers’ customers and employees.

When it comes to cleaning, we are not only selling clean environments. We are also selling safe and operative environments. We are selling resilience. Stability. Uptime.

Our products and services help our customers to keep their facilities up and running – which is especially important in times of extreme weather. Although the societal impact and importance of the cleaning industry is increasing on a deeply concerning background, it IS increasing. The era of extreme weather will change the world’s cleaning needs. And with that our industry.

The value of a new industry purpose includes attracting and keeping talent. Consequently, our industry needs to change how we think and talk about cleaning. But why is that valuable? How will it make our industry more successful?

Say we’re able to spread the word about how we impact society and the value we bring within sustainability. So what?

One positive effect is that we can make our industry much more attractive to diverse talent. If we successfully communicate our role, we can make our industry more engaging. More driven by a higher, valuable purpose.

Why do YOU go to work? To earn a living, of course. But it can and should be about more than that. You are not only helping your customers keep their premises clean. You are also helping them stay safe and operative.

In the face of extreme weather, this industry will become a pillar of societal resilience and stability. We will help make the world a safer place. Our industry is about more than just products and their functional performance. When we tap into the greater purpose of this industry, we can make recruitment and retention easier.

I believe we can make our value to society widely heard and acknowledged. And in doing so, we can attract even more talented people who want to make a difference. We are sitting on a formula that may transform our industry from within.

Perhaps you are interested – now what? There’s no doubt that it’s far easier to talk about transforming our industry with a new, sustainable purpose than it is for any of us to act upon. Consider these words a seed planted. And like any seed, it will take time to grow.

True commitment

Clearly, each of us must find what suits our unique circumstances. For some that will mean an urgent look at the company’s product development strategy, marketing practices, and internal and external communication. For others it will prompt a new, permanent point on the agenda of upcoming management meetings. Still others may be asking their key suppliers how they work to mitigate their effect on global warming.

I invite anyone who is interested in learning about Nilfisk’s work with sustainability to read our 2023 sustainability report and reach out to us at sustainability@nilfisk.com. Depending on the situation, we can explore potential synergies, activities, questions and answers and – who knows – take steps to nurture the transformation of our industry together.

We must show true commitment to mitigating our impact on global warming. You may be thinking: “but is it wrong to try to benefit from the negative effects of global warming?”

I will answer that question with another. Is it wrong to profit from alleviating a negative situation, essentially solving problems big or small with a commercial solution?  Of course not.

But it will, of course, be crucial that companies commercially leveraging this higher purpose do whatever is expected – and more – to mitigate their own impact on global warming. Otherwise, one could be seen as selling the medicine for a disease one helps spread.

This new industry position, which communicates how we enable resilience in the face of extreme weather, must include a deep commitment to combatting climate change. One cannot exist without the other.

Likewise, our industry cannot thrive without addressing the task climate change presents. And the world cannot thrive without the resilience our industry’s equipment and people provide.
Let’s transform our industry. Together.

www.nilfisk.com