“The choice of green chemicals is based on the credentials of the manufacturer, pH levels of the products, lab reports and the NLC documents produced in support of the chemicals.” – Prashant Sule
Price comparisons are made with similar cleaning products and finally, the vendor does not receive the right payment for the product. Even in the case of the service provider, the admin head plays a crucial role in the delay of payment. In an attempt to control costs and boost yearly savings to gain appreciation from his higher ups, the admin head eats into the payments made to housekeeping companies or drastically cuts down on cleaning supplies. With the going being so tough with regular cleaning products, housekeeping companies are sceptical in introducing eco-practices or eco-products.
Convincing Clients
“But, any cause being propagated does not gain acceptance the first time,” argues Prathibha. “There is more a social cause involved in eco practices than just meeting international cleaning standards. This calls for going one step beyond a mere commercial transaction and that is when change takes place.
“It involves a lot of education, creating awareness and live demonstration of the benefits of eco-cleaning. For example, take a shopping centre that prints “eco-friendly” on shopping bags or sells organic vegetables… In fact, it makes more business sense for having their washrooms display eco-friendly tags, as these enhance the customers’ feel good factor and add to the brand value of the shopping centre. This is the pitch that one needs to adopt to drive the message across,” adds Prathibha.
That is perhaps not the case everywhere. “We have not reached a level where people are willing to spend time or money on cleaning. They are yet to understand the difference between cleaning with a common soap solution and a green chemical. When we attempt to explain to the customer that a green chemical is neutral and does not contain acid/alkali, they question the performance of the product – “when the chemical does not have acid, how can it remove the stains?” It is very difficult to shake off that belief and convince people that even a neutral chemical can perform,” says Prashant.
“One effective way of convincing clients would be to show proof of concrete results,” suggests Vivek. “There has to be statistics or supporting documents with which we can show the client that a property of say `10 crores maintained with eco-products has an enhanced life. Today with green products, if we are increasing the billing by 10% we should be able to justify that increase to the client and show them how it is cost effective.”
Awareness
One of the ways of creating awareness among the people is to make them realise why the use of acid is detrimental to their property. “We could bring to light the fact that the use of acid on the expensive marble floor would cause damage and reduce the lifespan of the flooring to half. What could have lasted for 20 years would be reduced to 10 years with the use of acidic chemicals. We do not talk about eco-products or cost to the customer at all. When they have invested heavily on their property, we try to convince them that with the use of eco-friendly products the expensive marble stone can be preserved,” explains Prashant.
“About two-three per cent of the clients who care about their property do understand the need for eco-products and go for it. But, there have been instances where we have refused contracts of even five-star hotels where we were asked to use acid to clean the floor,” he adds.
“Commonly, at the administration level, the client is open to such practices, but it becomes difficult to convince the higher ups. At that level, cleaning is still not addressed as an important issue and is lost in the entire management set up. It is for us housekeeping companies to push for eco-practices and only then change can take place,” says Amit Singh, Director, Modern Facilities Management Pvt Ltd.
