Green Cleaning at the University of Arizona

This is an excerpt from "Not just Clean, but Green" written by By Daniel Stolte, University Communications, July 20, 2011. To read more of the article, including specifics on what the University does to be green, visit: http://www.uanews.org/node/40727

The University of Arizona is one of only a handful of universities in the nation to receive Green Guard Certification from the Green Guard Environmental Institute for its sustainable cleaning practices.

Green custodial practices have earned the University of Arizona's Facilities Management Custodial Services team the Green Guard Certification, a recognition earned by only a handful of campuses nationwide.

"Together with our business partners, janitorial suppliers xpedx and Diversey, we have been working on being a green cleaning university for several years," said Christopher Kopach, director of Facilities Management. "When we looked at what other campuses were doing across the country, we realized we were already exceeding many of the requirements for certification, so we decided to go for it."

Kopach said that in 2008, when outgoing UA President Robert Shelton announced he wanted to make the UA a carbon-neutral campus, Facilities Management was already making the transition from "traditional" to "green" cleaning on campus.

The Green Guard Certification, given by the Green Guard Environmental Institute, is the formal recognition of the UA's commitment to maintain a clean, safe and attractive campus by conserving water, using only environmentally friendly sanitary and cleaning products and employing more efficient custodial practices.