The online study,»Business Cleaning Sustainability,» conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs on behalf of P&G Professional, surveyed businesses on their sustainability knowledge, product purchase decision-making process and cleaning habits to gauge perceptions, attitudes and behaviors about topics related to sustainability. The respondents included cleaning product decision makers in four sectors: lodging, foodservice, health care and commercial cleaning industries.

Overall survey highlights include (among others):

A Lack of Guidelines: Less than a quarter of respondents reported that their business had sustainability guidelines.

Green Confusion: Nine out of 10 respondents believe sustainability and environmental responsibility is important for their business, but 1/3 openly admit to being outright confused at some stage regarding what it means to be green.

Performance and Price Prevail: Despite interest in environmentally-responsible products, product performance (61%) and price (52%) are the top two factors impacting decision makers and their selection of cleaning products.

Can Green Still Clean? For half the respondents, “green” and “effective” can go hand-in-hand, but for nearly one third (30%), these qualities were mutually exclusive (20% were unsure).

Of all the industries surveyed, incorporating environmentally-responsible practices resonated most with the lodging industry (hotels and motels). In fact, 30% of lodging respondents have sustainable guidelines, as compared to just 18% of the health care sector and 17% of the commercial industry. When it comes to motivations for purchasing green cleaning products, client preferences (26%) are more important for the lodging industry than in the foodservice (8%), health care (10%) and commercial (11%) industries. Corporate guidelines or corporate social responsibility policies (23%) are more likely to motivate those from the lodging industry than those from the health care (9%) or commercial (8%) industries to purchase green cleaning products.

The health care sector (hospitals, nursing homes and retirement communities) reported being the least inclined to demonstrate attitudes and behaviors related to the adoption of sustainability practices. Where health care ranks highest is skepticism: 42%are unsure about which entity to trust as compared to the lodging industry (22%) and commercial industries (27%).

To access survey results, visit the sustainability section of www.pgpro.com.