The best way to end the year is by recognizing the outstanding schools and universities who are the 2008 winners of the Green Cleaning Awards for Schools & Universities sponsored by the Green Cleaning Network, Healthy Schools Campaign and American School & University Magazine.

This year we recognize winners in three categories; universities, colleges and K-12 schools & districts. In each category we recognize one Winner and an Honorable Mention. And because there were so many outstanding entries from universities, three were recognized as Honorable Mentions because of their outstanding accomplishments and the value that each could contribute to Green Cleaning practices.

This year’s Award winners are:
• University of California, Santa Barbara; Winner
• Michigan State University; Honorable Mention
• University of Georgia; Honorable Mention
• Western Washington University; Honorable Mention
• Miami Dade College, North Campus; Winner
• Colorado College; Honorable Mention
• Jonesboro (AR) Public Schools; K-12 Winner
• Oswego (IL) C.U.S.D. #308; K-12 Honorable Mention

Based on a simplified application process there was a 25 percent increase in the number of applicants since just last year. But most notable was how much the applications improved especially in the following four areas:

Innovations: There was a clear trend from the winners who never stopped improving their programs by introducing innovative products including greener cleaning chemicals, janitorial powered equipment that reduced the use of chemicals and even eliminated it all together, strategies to eliminate floor stripping which is one of the most hazardous cleaning procedures, the expanded use of color-coded microfiber products, paper products that demonstrated that improved quality can actually reduce consumption, reductions in packaging, and more.

This reinforced our belief that Green Cleaning truly is a “journey”. With the growing commitment from cleaning product manufactures the best is still ahead and this year’s winners illustrated the need to build a process to continually improve and evaluate new technologies.

Training: This continues to be an important area of focus and reinforces that if even the greenest product is misused it can lead to unnecessary and negative health and environmental impacts. And this year’s winners all demonstrated a strong commitment to training their people through documented training sessions, structured programming, input from cleaning personnel and building occupants leading to further improvements in the training programs, multi-lingual training, and more.

Communications: Whether in a university residence hall or an elementary school classroom, getting the occupants including kids and staff to make better decisions that affect how the rooms and buildings are cleaned remains an important challenge. And this year’s winners demonstrated innovative communications programs that addressed how occupants could impact the health and the environment.

And beyond just communicating with kids and staff, winners developed programs to reach out to the community at large including 60 second spots on public television. Plus, some of our winners leveraged their program to require their contractors to convert to Green Cleaning helping to drive “green” throughout the marketplace.

Measurement: One of today’s biggest challenges with Green Cleaning and cleaning in general is its lack of objective measurements. This year’s winners used a number of measurement techniques including custodial management software, PDAs for quality assurance, ATP meters, cleaning standard certifications, and other tools and strategies. While we still have a long way to go to standardize objective cleaning industry metrics, it is clear that our winners will be leading the way.

Again our thanks and congratulations to all of our winners, as well as all entrants who took the time to apply for the Award. And let us not forget, the winners include the kids and staff, our communities and environment. We are making a difference.

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