Press Release, September 24, 2024, Aaron Gilbreath
Watch Verde’s EPA Video here.
On Tuesday, September 24, the Environmental Protection Agency named Verde Clean a 2024 Safer Choice Partner of the Year.
“This is the first year that we applied to the Safer Choice Partner of the Year program,” said Verde Chief Revenue Officer Amber Reyna, “so we could not feel prouder. The EPA’s recognition offers welcome validation of the hard work we’re putting in to extend our 100% green cleaning program across the country, and source the most innovative green products.”
The EPA is an independent agency within the United States government that maintains and enforces a variety of national environmental laws, and reduces environmental risk, to protect human health and the environment.
As part of their Pollution Prevention (P2) program, the EPA developed the Safer Choice label to help consumers and companies find environmentally safe cleaning and other products that perform as well as conventional products. Every year, as part of that mission, the EPA recognizes organizations whose selection, promotion, production, design, and use of safer chemicals work to reduce pollution and environmental risks. Verde’s green cleaning program, Verde Earth, uses 100% eco-friendly cleaning products, equipment, and processes, to reduce and help eliminate pollution at its source and to protect people and the Earth’s interconnected ecosystems.
“Green cleaning has a lot to do with improving indoor air quality where people work, learn and play,” said Reyna. “Our mission is to provide cleaner, healthier spaces, and we implement that in high schools and universities, county and city buildings,
manufacturing sites, public space, critical space, you name it. And by cleaning green at a larger scale, we help create a greener world—or what we like to call a more verde earth.”
Founded in Phoenix, Arizona in 2019, Verde Clean is a minority-owned, eco-friendly facilities services company. As a certified Minority-Owned Business, or MBE,
Verde recognizes the connection between janitorial services and environmental well-being.
“Our staff’s lives as minorities, and our long history in the janitorial industry, has taught us first-hand that janitorial workers can play an influential role in the national conversation about environmental health,” said Verde CEO Paul Sarzoza. “There’s no other way to put it. Minority groups do most our country’s commercial cleaning, so when Verde cleans green we directly help protect the janitors who work in those buildings, we protect our customers who work in those buildings, and we reduce our industry’s impact on the Earth. When you’re mopping a bathroom and vacuuming lobbies, it’s easy to forget, but we tackle a global issue one building at a time.”
That is why the EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment “today and every day,” resonates so deeply with Verde: Every day, we’re all exposed to unhealthy chemicals in commercial and household cleaning products, but we don’t have to be.
“Everyone needs clean air, water, and soil,” said Reyna, “and every person deserves to use buildings that get cleaned with nontoxic products and processes. The Safer Choice label guides our purchasing decisions in procurement, and we try to represent the Safer Choice Program’s mission in everything we do.”
This is why Verde already partners with other Safer Choice Partners of the Year, including LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, an eco-friendly manufacturer whose disinfectant, Pure, is integral to our green cleaning program.
This now extends to the policy level.
To help ensure cleaner, healthier spaces, Reyna sits on the government affairs board for the International Sanitary Supply Association (ISSA), an industry trade association. In 2024, she attended the ISSA Clean Advocacy Summit in Washington D.C., to advocate for legislation that impacts healthy and safe disinfecting products, labor shortage solutions, and career development for essential workers such as janitors.
As part of the summit, Reyna met with legislators, and Verde advocated for increased EPA funding to help increase the amount of innovative eco-friendly products on the market. Although there are many general green cleaning products already available, a surprising number of gaps exist. As advocates, Verde’s hope is to give general consumers and other commercial cleaners access to an even wider variety of affordable, eco-friendly products that have been vetted by a trusted, third party, like the EPA. Trust is critically important, which is why being a 2024 Safer Choice Partner of the Year means so much to Verde.
Over time, Verde intends to help set a new standard in the commercial cleaning industry, leading the way forward in a profession that has relied on harmful cleaning agents for far too long.
“It’s exciting to see, outside of what we do as cleaners, the imaginative ways we can make an impact on the industry,” said Reyna, “and by extension, the world.”
When organizations choose Verde as their facilities services company, those customers know that they, too, are making a safe choice. “There are many commercial janitorial options on the market,” said Sarzoza. “But with a Safer Choice Partner of the Year, businesses know they have chosen a company who prioritizes the health of the environment and the buildings’ occupants. We clean green for many reasons, and customers appreciate that.”
Want more information?
Read about the Environmental Protection Agency’s mission here.
Read about the EPA Safer Choice Program here.
About Verde Clean
Founded in 2019, Verde Clean is a Hispanic-owned and operated facilities services company focused on delivering cleaner, healthier spaces and a greener world. True to the Verde name, which means green in Spanish, sustainability is at the heart of our company’s mission, vision, and values. Verde is in 11 states, doubling in size nearly every year since its inception, and is positioned for rapid expansion to meet the increasing demand for our green services.
Connect with Verde on LinkedIn and at VerdeClean.com.
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