Every year, thousands of us gather at the ISSA Show North America to talk about our industry’s future. This year, I want to talk about something that cuts across every booth on the floor: sustainability. Not a buzzword or a political statement—a business strategy the smartest entrepreneurs in our industry are already using to win.

Let me start with what sustainability is not. It’s not a mandate from Washington, Brussels or Beijing. It’s not a values statement for a press release. It’s not something only large corporations can afford. If you’ve avoided the topic because it feels political, I want to change your mind—because getting this wrong is one of the most expensive mistakes a small or mid-sized cleaning company can make right now.

What sustainability actually means

Strip away the jargon, and sustainability is simple: Making decisions today that help your organization succeed tomorrow. It’s not about saving the planet in some abstract sense—though that matters too. It’s about running a business that wastes less, protects its people, manages risk deliberately and builds the trust that keeps customers coming back.

Think about it this way: When you buy a used car, you don’t ask for a vehicle history report out of curiosity about the past. You ask because that history is the best evidence for a question you actually care about: Is this car going to break down on me in the future? Sustainability information works the same way for your customers—it’s evidence for the risk question they’re really asking: If we hire this company, what are we exposed to?

That risk breaks down into three categories, whether or not your customer uses these words.

• Environmentally: Are you handling chemicals and waste properly, or could a violation land on them?
• Socially: Are your workers legally employed and properly classified—not misclassified as independent contractors—and is your supply chain free of child or forced labor?
• Governance: Do you carry the insurance you claim to carry, and do you win business honestly, without bribes or side deals that could expose them by association?

Get any one of these wrong, and the headache doesn’t stay with you. It becomes theirs too.

That’s not politics. That’s what every good salesperson has always known: Trust wins business.

Why this matters more to entrepreneurs than to anyone else

Large corporations have compliance departments and budgets to absorb this cost. You don’t, which is exactly why sustainability, done right, is a bigger advantage for you than for them.

Big companies move slowly, with committees and sign-off chains. A small or mid-sized cleaning company can decide on Monday and see results by Friday. That’s a speed advantage, not a cost center.

And there’s a specific, current reason this can’t wait. California’s SB 253, known as the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, requires large companies to report full supply chain emissions—Scope 3—starting in 2027, covering 2026 data. If even one customer crosses that revenue threshold, they may ask you for basic energy, fuel, purchasing and other data, possibly as early as this year. Companies with simple tracking habits already in place won’t blink. Those who don’t will scramble—and lose accounts to competitors who did.

Sustainability is good business, not a statement

I want to be direct about something, because I think it’s the biggest misconception holding our industry back. Sustainability has gotten tangled up with political debates that have nothing to do with what happens on a job site. Whatever anyone’s views on the broader environmental conversation, none of that changes whether a chemical is diluted correctly, a worker is trained to work safely and has the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE), or a customer’s question gets answered honestly and on time.

I stay focused on the business case because that’s what matters to your bottom line. Sustainability, done right, reduces waste, risk and turnover—workers who feel safe and respected stay longer. It builds the reputation that wins bids against competitors who can’t answer with the same confidence. None of that requires a position on climate policy; it requires good management—now and in the future.

THINK Sustainably: one habit, applied everywhere

If there’s one idea I want every reader to walk away with, it’s this: Sustainability is not a program. It’s not a department. It’s a habit—a simple pause before a decision, big or small, to ask five questions.

Is there a safer way to do this? Can we reduce waste? Can we save time or energy? How will this affect our workers, our customers, the people in the building? And is there a risk we can avoid by acting now instead of waiting?

I call this THINK Sustainably, and I’ve watched it transform organizations of every size, because it doesn’t require a budget or a title. A front-line worker can ask it while filling a mop bucket. A supervisor can ask it while reviewing a schedule. An owner can ask it while deciding what to buy next. The habit scales because it depends on everyone’s attention, not anyone’s authority.

And a habit, repeated by enough people for long enough, is what culture actually is. THINK Sustainably isn’t a one-time initiative you launch and check off—it’s meant to build a culture of continual improvement, where the question gets asked a little more often this year than last, small wins get noticed and repeated, and the organization keeps improving not because a policy demands it, but because it’s simply how people here work.

I’ve seen this play out in small, unglamorous ways. A supervisor who fixes an over-dispensing dilution station before it hits next quarter’s budget. An owner who runs a simple risk assessment before storm season—which routes could be disrupted, which suppliers might go dark, which job sites lack shade for a crew in a heat wave—and has a plan ready before the emergency. A crew leader who tracks fuel and energy numbers before a customer asks, turning the next questionnaire into a twenty-minute task. None of these make headlines. All of them make better, more resilient businesses.

The opportunity in front of us

Our industry employs more than 100 million people worldwide, touching nearly every building where people work, learn, heal and live. That’s an outsized opportunity to show what practical, business-driven sustainability looks like—not the version debated in headlines, but the version practiced in supply closets, on cleaning carts and in daily decisions.

If you’re walking the show floor this year, here’s where to start. ISSA’s Sustainability Committee is free for members to join, and it’s where the industry’s most forward-thinking companies are already working through these questions together. Stop by the Sustainability Hub and learn from people doing this work in the field. And as you walk the floor, ask every exhibitor one question: What is your organization doing on sustainability—not just which products carry a green label, but how the company itself operates? That’s the real test. Sustainability isn’t a product or a process—it’s how well the organization behind it performs.

What’s the first THINK Sustainably decision you’re going to make this week? It doesn’t need to be complicated—it just needs to be the first of many. The companies that start today will still be standing, and still winning business, when the rest of the industry tries to catch up.

I also invite you to consider joining the ISSA Sustainability Committee. Scan the QR code here to help make a difference.