Sam Herzfeld is 29 years old, and, though childless now, he happily envisions a future that includes fatherhood. As a fourth-generation principal of Guardian Service Industries, a New York City janitorial and building-maintenance company, Herzfeld participated in and supported a critical business decision made last year that extends far beyond dollars and cents to include the family he hopes someday to have.
Guardian’s gone green.
The company, founded by Herzfeld’s great-grandfather in 1918, has adopted what it calls “environmentally preferable practices,” including the use of new cleaning products and equipment and the implementation of safe packaging and shipping of products certified by the non-profit Green Seal. Guardian executives believe theirs is the first cleaning company to go completely green.
Herzfeld, Guardian’s executive vice president, assisted in the planning process that preceded the shift to green cleaning. “It’s definitely going to affect my children, and it’s a hot topic right now,” he says. “I support it 100%. It’s a necessity.”
Besides Herzfeld, Guardian’s leadership includes board chair Harold Bressler, 84, the son of founder Samuel Bressler; Harold’s son Alan Bressler, 50, the chief operating officer; and Harold’s son-in-law Sandy Herzfeld, 62—Sam’s father—who is chief executive officer. This group decided together to take the company in an environmentally friendlier direction.
“Sandy and I and my father and Sam all determined it was the best thing for many different reasons,” says Alan Bressler. “It was better for the environment. . . . We’re in the fourth generation. If we’re not environmentally conscious, we may not be able to pass [the company] down to the fifth, sixth, seventh generation.”
Learning how to go green
Once the decision was made, Guardian began educating itself. It got in touch with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a coalition of building industry leaders who promote environmental responsibility within the industry, and asked for guidance. Senior vice president Michael Eisenberg, who heads Guardian’s marketing efforts, immersed himself in online resources on green cleaning. The company’s buyers recruited their new suppliers to come in and talk about the different products that would be used in day-to-day operations. And a pair of Guardian employees spent three months applying for and receiving USGBC’s coveted LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, the building industry’s leading recognition of compliance with a variety of environmental standards. In order to become certified, applicants must demonstrate adherence to USGBC’s rating standards in such areas as sustainability, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.
Guardian also had to educate its 1,500 full-time employees, 500 part-timers and 100 contractors. As Sandy Herzfeld puts it, “We were creating a new company.”
Guardian’s employees, for example, had to be retrained to use the new supplies and equipment, and its 6,000 clients had to be pitched, one by one, on what the company was doing and why. (The company cleans and services more than 70 million square feet of commercial space in the Greater New York area.) Ninety days after the Bresslers and Herzfelds made their decision, Guardian was ready to go.
“Since it’s a family-owned business, between the four of us—and Mike [Eisenberg] included—we are on top of every one of our accounts,” says Alan Bressler. “We’re in contact with them all the time. We gave them the option. We said, ‘You don’t have to go along with it, but we want to green your building. It’s better for tenants, it’s better for the environment.’ Nobody was going to say it wasn’t beneficial. I got some resistance from a couple of customers who didn’t think the buildings would be as clean; they thought it wouldn’t be as effective. That’s not accurate. In many cases they’re better.”
Guardian has been making that point to clients, in very direct ways. Company officials are at new customers’ front door first thing in the morning to hand out explanatory brochures to tenants and employees arriving for work. Guardian says its decision to go green has not resulted in the loss of any clients.
Among the products and equipment that Guardian replaced in its changeover are cleaners of all types, floor seals and finishes, vacuum cleaners, mops and wiping cloths. The aim has been to reduce pollutants and contaminants released as part of the cleaning process. The new cleaning methods, Guardian executives say, improve the health of those who work in the buildings the company cleans—especially those who suffer from asthma or allergies—thus lowering absentee rates and increasing productivity.
Green economics
The company, which generates nearly $100 million in annual revenues, estimates that it has spent $250,000 to convert to a green shop—$50,000 for direct marketing and the remainder for equipment and training. Guardian officials say the company has absorbed all costs without passing them along to clients. That fiscal hit has proved less onerous that one might think, company leaders say. In many cases, they note, the newer, safer chemicals can be used in smaller amounts and in less expensive dilutions; shipping is less costly; and the microfiber cloths can be reused much more often.
“The green chemicals, if used properly, cost no more than the regular chemicals, and sometimes even less,” says Harold Bressler. “And the end product is the environment and the health of the employees, and the tenants in the buildings, which is, to say the least, very important. And from a money point of view, it was a good marketing tool for us.”
Family members say they’re unsure how to quantify the amount of new and retained business its decision led to, though they point out that at least three clients have cited the company’s use of environmentally friendly marketing materials—recycled paper in its responses to RFPs, for example—as among the reasons they chose Guardian to service their buildings.
The company insists that the marketing benefits of its green decision have been a happy accident. According to Sandy Herzfeld, Guardian’s family ownership structure fostered the kind of mindset that placed fiscal concerns within a broader concept of sustainability when it came to the company’s future.
“Because we’re a family and because we make decisions together, the economic cost was not the first thing we thought about,” he says. “We thought about what was good for the future. The economics came in later on.”
“I came out of college and began doing this in 1979,” adds Alan Bressler. “I don’t know how Fortune 500 companies operate, but the four of us can sit at a table and in minutes make a decision. We realized it was the best thing. It helped us marketing-wise, but that wasn’t our initial goal. It was to do the right thing.”
Sam Herzfeld isn’t the only Guardian official who sees the long-range impact of his company’s decision on yet-to-be born generations. His grandfather, who has been a part of Guardian for more than 60 years, not so modestly proclaims that the company’s efforts represent “a great thing for the American people and the world.”
“It’s an entirely new process for me, as it is for everyone in our company,” says Harold Bressler. “We find that cost-wise, it hasn’t hurt us, and business-wise, it has helped us. We’ve gained new customers. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m really a consultant here. I’ve got two great-grandchildren, and hopefully it’s going to reach all the way down to their generations and the generations that come after them. I feel good about it.”
Thomas W. Durso (tom@tomdurso.com) is a freelance writer based in Glenside, Pa.
So you want to go green?
The leadership at Guardian Service Industries offers these tips for companies seeking to become more environmentally friendly:
• Do your homework and find outstanding resources. Guardian recommends starting with the U.S. Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org).
• Be prepared to follow through. A deep commitment is required to make the green decision a successful one, as there are expenses—financial and otherwise —involved.
• Realize that, regardless of your politics, the business trend is toward greening. As Michael Eisenberg, Guardian’s senior vice president, puts it, “There are two kinds of people: people that are green and people that are going to be green.”
• Keep your eye on the long view; recognize that conservation and other environmentally friendly tactics are ultimately good business.
— T.W.D.