The cleaning industry is essential for maintaining healthy and safe buildings for the benefit of the public. As such, the cleaning products that a facility manager buys are not just line items on a procurement spreadsheet; their ingredients can affect building occupant health, indoor air quality, and an organization’s sustainability goals.
Choosing products with safer ingredients certified by the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Safer Choice Program leads to measurable outcomes: fewer health and safety incidents, better indoor air quality, less water usage, improved waste reduction, supply chain transparency, and stronger supplier engagement and collaboration. These outcomes provide metrics that help businesses strengthen their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals, enabling companies to demonstrate improvements that lead to significant cost savings.
Research holds immense value in filling critical knowledge gaps to improve the cleaning industry’s impact on health and operational efficiency. The Making Safer Choices project, spearheaded by ISSA to promote healthier indoor environments, involves research investigating cleaning knowledge, attitudes, and practices. The studies delve into the reasons why safer chemistry matters and how facilities, cleaning companies, and frontline workers are making product decisions.
Ingredient considerations
Cleaning product chemistry involves using various chemical substances to break down and remove contaminants from surfaces. Traditional cleaning chemistries can contain solvents, alkalis,
surfactants, preservatives, dyes, and fragrances that contribute to:
- Respiratory irritation and asthma triggers (e.g., certain volatile organic compounds (VOCs), quaternary ammonium compounds (quats), and fragranced compounds).
- Skin sensitization and chemical burns.
- Aquatic toxicity and persistence once products enter wastewater.
- Higher personal protective equipment (PPE) requirements, more complex hazard communication training, and higher workers’ compensation risks.
EPA Safer Choice certification screens every intentionally added ingredient, including dyes and fragrances, against human health and environmental criteria such as carcinogenicity, reproductive toxicity, sensitization, aquatic toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation. That whole-formula scrutiny gives users the confidence that they are not simply swapping one ingredient for another, but can make informed decisions to drive improvements.
Business and health benefits
The Making Safer Choices project research has identified companies and facilities that use EPA Safer Choice-certified cleaning products. Although the studies are ongoing, it has already found that safer chemical choices lead to measurable improvements in facility performance, occupant well-being, risk management, and credibility.
Under facility performance, facilities that procure Safer Choice products commonly report:
- Lower hazard classifications: Fewer products required special storage or handling, resulting in lower costs and risks in managing spills, and fewer PPE requirements.
- Less equipment corrosion and surface damage: Safer chemistries can extend the life of floor finishes, soft surfaces, and cleaning tools and equipment.
- Faster onboarding and fewer errors: Standardization, implemented through cleaning protocols, showed reduced variance in dilution, application, and dwell times. Facilities reported fewer errors, reduced rework, and even faster completion of tasks.
Under occupant well-being, organizations that used products with safer ingredients found:
- Improved indoor air quality (IAQ) from reducing VOCs as measured by monitors. Research is ongoing, but results from focus group discussions are finding that people feel better, reporting fewer headaches and other ailments associated with unhealthy air.
- Fewer incident reports related to chemical exposure to the eyes, skin, and respiratory systems.
- Enhanced perception of cleanliness and safety among employees, occupants, and students at universities and schools.
Under risk management and credibility, Safer Choice-certified products are helping facilities:
- Be more transparent about the risks they face.
- Have clear processes for addressing risk, thus reinforcing credibility.
- Align procurement with reduction and sustainability goals.
- Use data and methodologies to help ensure performance and efficacy.
- Demonstrate third-party verified progress, for example, through the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system or the International Well Building Institute’s WELL Building Standard® (WELL). It also appears that Safer Choice-certified products offer education and training in languages other than English and Spanish.
Airport, executive, and school benefits
A phased transition to Safer Choice-certified floor care, glass, restroom, and general-purpose cleaning products reduced the number of chemical stock-keeping units (SKUs) by more than half. Airport cleaning services participating in the Safer Choices Program reported fewer worker chemical irritation incidents. IAQ monitors at the airport they cleaned showed lower total volatile
organic compounds (TVOCs) during and after routine cleaning. After seeing the results, the airport integrated “Safer Choice or equivalent” language into all future requests for proposals (RFPs), making safer chemistry the default, not the exception.
A senior group of executives involved in the project used Safer Choice products as a “procurement screen” to backstop its wellness goals. Executives evaluated purchasing decisions based on their impact on employee well-being and sustainability. Within one year, the company documented greater awareness of chemical exposures among employees, improved training and compliance, and reported stronger employee satisfaction scores when surveyed on the appearance, odor, and overall cleanliness of workspaces, restrooms, and meeting rooms.
A school district in the Making Safer Choices project involved students, parents, and teachers in its decision to use Safer Choice-certified products. The district aligned cleaning product purchases with health and sustainability values and integrated ingredient transparency and safety education into the curriculum. Students took on the role of “disease detectives,” using adenosine triphosphate (ATP) meters and IAQ monitors to measure cleanliness.
Research continues
As program administrators continue to analyze results, they are finding that EPA Safer Choice-certified products are not just “less bad” choices; they are strategic assets that help facilities run cleaner, safer, and smarter. By codifying safer chemistry into procurement and proving the operational, health, and environmental gains with data, organizations can protect people, enhance performance, and elevate sustainability credibility, without compromising cleaning efficacy. See the results for yourself. Join the Making Safer Choices Community of Practice at issa.com/making-safer-choices.
Make the Case for Safer Choices With Metrics
If you want to persuade leadership, decision-makers, or your customers that safer chemistry provides a high return on investment, then measuring cleanliness is essential. Follow this roadmap to ensure making safer choices translates into measurable results.
- Take inventory. Map every cleaning product, its function, hazard classification, and active ingredients. Note overlaps and redundancies.
- Write it into procurement. Make “EPA Safer Choice-certified or demonstrably equivalent safer chemistry” a default clause in RFPs and contracts.
- Pilot high-impact categories. Start with high-volume products with frequent occupant exposure, such as general-purpose, glass, restroom, and floor care products.
- Train and simplify. Provide standard operating procedures, dilution controls, and visual cues.
- Measure relentlessly: Capture key performance indicators at regular intervals, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. Publish the wins and stories as they happen.
- Engage stakeholders. Involve custodial, facility management, sustainability, purchasing, finance, and C-suite teams, along with building occupants. Safer chemistry is a culture shift as much as a specification change.
- Continuously improve. Revisit product lists quarterly. Improvements in cleaning products are emerging constantly, and risks change as the seasons change.
