by Brianna Crandall — April 17, 2015—Worldwide cleaning industry association ISSA has released a pace-setting standard to help institutional and commercial facilities managers measure and monitor the effectiveness of their cleaning processes. According to ISSA, it is the first science-based standard to determine what is “clean” in these types of facilities.
The new ISSA Clean Standard: Institutional and Commercial applies to general institutional and commercial facilities such as office buildings, retail stores, hotels, and similar facilities.
“The ISSA Clean Standard establishes a framework to help facilities assess the effectiveness of their cleaning processes using a blend of ATP testing and traditional inspection methods,” explains ISSA Director of Legislative and Environmental Services Bill Balek. “More importantly, the ISSA Clean Standard focuses on how to use the measurement and inspection results to improve the cleaning process, which contributes to the overall quality of the indoor environment and health of the occupants.”
The new ISSA Clean Standard derives from the ISSA Clean Standard: K-12, issued in October 2013, which provides a protocol for assessing cleaning effectiveness in schools. The K-12 standard is based on extensive independent scientific research, conducted by the Cleaning Industry Research Institute’s (CIRI) Science Advisory Panel, that includes thousands of ATP measurements on high-touch points taken in numerous schools representing multiple geographic and climatic variations.
The ISSA Clean Standard provides simplified “ranges of clean” for three ATP meters (testing for the adenosine triphosphate enzyme to monitor cleaning effectiveness) that, based on extensive field research, prove to deliver an objective, quantitative component to determine whether a facility is truly clean.
“The ISSA Clean Standard: K-12 provides the detail necessary to assure a clean and healthy environment for this very important and vulnerable population, “says CIRI Executive Director Jim Harris. “The measurement, training, and certification procedures applicable to the ISSA Clean Standard: K-12 can apply to effective implementation of the new ISSA Clean Standard, thereby extending the measurement and systematic evaluation of cleaning practices to as many other facilities as possible.”
ISSA notes that the standards are also valuable sales tools for all cleaning industry professionals—from distributors and manufacturers to cleaning service providers—and can make a difference throughout the cleaning industry.
“As ISSA seeks to change the way the world views cleaning and demonstrate the true value of cleaning, these standards serve as a resource that ensures cleaning is properly treated as an investment in our health, safety, and the environment as well as the bottom line,” says ISSA Executive Director John Garfinkel.
Licenses are available for third parties to provide training on how to measure cleanliness based on the standard. Both standards can be downloaded from The ISSA Clean Standards site.
