Articles

Making Safer Choices

Categories: Building Service Contractor, Business Management, Cleaning for Health & Safety, Sustainability & ESG

ISSA proudly announces a new partnership with Penn State College of Medicine and The City College of New York School of Medicine (CUNY Med) to improve human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities across Pennsylvania and New York. The initiative will be funded by a US$1.19 million Pollution Prevention (P2) grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). ISSA’s collaboration with Penn State and CUNY Med makes it one of 24 recipients selected by the EPA across the country.

The two-year project launched in January 2024 will provide technical assistance to business sectors to develop a university-trade association-stakeholder partnership that increases the knowledge, demand, and use of the EPA’s more than 1,900 Safer Choice labeled products.

The provided technical assistance will include hosting focus group and stakeholder interviews, designing community-based solutions, and offering training on how to identify cleaning products with safer ingredients. This technical assistance will be provided to both businesses and end users. 

The grant will help develop and adopt pollution prevention practices that advance environmental justice in underserved communities. It will also focus on strengthening economic growth and addressing environmental, public health, and social issues. According to the EPA, more than 3,200 disadvantaged communities in Pennsylvania and over 4,900 in New York could benefit from ISSA’s collaboration with Penn State and CUNY.

EPA Safer Choice program

The Safer Choice program helps consumers and purchasers for facilities, such as schools and office buildings, find cleaners, detergents, and other products made with chemical ingredients that are safer for human health and the environment, without sacrificing quality or performance. Safer Choice is a voluntary partnership program grounded in more than 40 years of EPA experience in evaluating the human health and environmental characteristics of chemicals.

Meaning of the Safer Choice label

When a product has the Safer Choice label, it means that every intentionally added ingredient in the product has been evaluated. Safer Choice evaluates the individual constituents of every proprietary component of a product to ensure that it does not contain chemicals that may present potential health or environmental effects, including ingredients used in small percentages, like fragrances, preservatives, and dyes.

EPA Safer Choice recognition does not constitute endorsement of a product, and the EPA does not independently conduct chemical analysis of the ingredients in the product formula. EPA Safer Choice evaluation is conducted as specified in the Safer Choice standard and based on currently available information and scientific understanding.

“Cleaning products are household items that we each use in our daily lives. We may not realize that products often have irritants that hurt not only us but also the environment,” said Penn State College of Medicine Professor Rebecca Bascom, MD, MPH. “This project will provide education and technical assistance to businesses to ensure the people using the cleaning products can do their jobs safely, regardless of the language they speak or other socio-economic factors.”

In New York City, CUNY Medicine’s Community Health and Social Medicine (CHASM) department will first adopt a similar multi-pronged partnership approach to understand what products are used by professional cleaning staff in office buildings, hospitals, transit hubs, and residential buildings.

“The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated how much we need and rely upon cleaning professionals to keep all of our businesses, health care facilities, and wider environment clean and safe,” said Omrana Pasha-Razzak, MD, medical professor and chair of CHASM. “It is imperative that we also look out for them to ensure that the environments where they work and the products they use are non-toxic for their own protection and for that of the environment.”

ISSA’s role in the project

ISSA’s part in this two-year project is to help in a variety of ways:

• Identify key businesses, local business associations, chambers of commerce or economic development agencies that could significantly impact the supply, demand, and use of safer cleaning products. These might include retailers selling cleaning products, cleaning service companies, and large businesses or institutions that use substantial amounts of cleaning products, such as schools, hotels, airports, churches, and hospitals.
• Create a process to strengthen partnerships with ISSA members (manufacturers, distributors, cleaning companies), retailers, community organizations, local companies and workers, and local government agencies.
• Create a directory and map local suppliers of EPA Safer Choice label products.
• Launch awareness campaigns using ISSA Media resources using print materials, online resources, and in-person meetings to provide information about the benefits of cleaning products with safer ingredients for both human health and the environment.
• Develop community-based toolkits to provide resources and support purchasing and using products. This will include helping businesses find suppliers of safer products, offering technical assistance for implementing new cleaning procedures, or providing resources like sample cleaning schedules or visual job aids.

Everyone in the cleaning industry is excited about this project. We will build trusted university-trade association-stakeholder partnerships that will include over 500 ISSA member companies from across the cleaning industry supply chain, including manufacturers, distributors, and building service contractors (BSCs). Our project will develop community-designed toolkits and training programs in multiple languages to help people make safer choices and advocate for safer cleaning products to help protect the health of businesses, building occupants, and the environment.

EPA Safer Choice Partner of the Year awards

Making the Safer Choice program’s mission known to the broadest possible audience is key to fully realizing the program’s goals and potential. EPA developed the Partner of the Year award to recognize partners and stakeholders who have furthered the safer chemistry and safer product goals of the Safer Choice program. Recipients have demonstrated active and exemplary participation in the design, manufacture, selection, and using of products with safer chemicals.

In 2023, this prestigious recognition was earned for the hard work of 15 ISSA-member companies and ISSA in promoting safer chemistry in cleaning products, and included:

• Apple, Cupertino, CA
• Bona US, Englewood, CO
• JAWS International Ltd., a division of Canberra Corporation, Toledo, OH
• Church & Dwight Co. Inc., Ewing, NJ
• The Clorox Company, Oakland, CA
• ECOS-Plant Powered Clean, Cypress, CA
• Holloway House Inc., Fortville, IN
• The Home Depot, Atlanta, GA
• Jelmar LLC, Skokie, IL
• PurposeBuilt Brands, Gurnee, IL
• McFadden and Associates LLC, Canby, OR
• Novozymes North America, Franklinton, NC
• Rust-Oleum Corporation, Vernon Hills, IL
• Spartan Chemical Company, Maumee, OH
• State Industrial Products, Mayfield Heights, OH.

“We thank EPA and Safer Choice for recognizing the leadership of our member companies, working in concert with ISSA, in creating a healthier, cleaner planet,” said ISSA’s executive director, John Barrett. “Sustainable cleaning and reducing the environmental footprint of the global cleaning industry continues to be a priority for ISSA and our industry.”

About the Author.

Dr. Gavin Macgregor-Skinner is director of the Global Biorisk Advisory Council® (GBAC), a division of ISSA. As an infection prevention expert and consultant, he works to develop protocols and education for the global cleaning industry to empower facilities, businesses, and cleaning professionals to create safe environments.