Run a cleaning tender and the submissions come back stacked with logos. EcoVadis, ISO, HACCP, B Corp, SEDEX, green leaves, star ratings. Everyone claims to be certified in something. Almost none of it is explained.
We wrote a whole piece on why an EcoVadis rating matters, but EcoVadis is just one badge on a much bigger board. Here is what the others actually mean, and what each one guarantees you as the client.
Cleaning is easy to make promises in and hard to verify. Anyone can say they are green, safe, and fair to their staff. A certification means a third party has actually checked.
That matters here more than most industries, because the sector's biggest risks are real:
Certifications are how a serious provider proves it has these under control, instead of asking you to take its word for it.
A global rating used by 100,000+ companies across 175 countries. It scores a business on four themes: environment, labour and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement.
The result is a medal, ranked against everyone else assessed:
To earn any medal, a company must hit a minimum score in all four themes, so it cannot hide a weak area behind a strong one.
What it guarantees you: independent proof of genuine sustainability and ethics performance, ranked against thousands of peers. Useful if you report on your supply chain.
ISO standards are audited by accredited third parties. Three come up constantly in cleaning, and "ISO certified" alone tells you nothing. Ask which ones:
What they guarantee you: quality, environmental, and safety practices built into audited systems, not just claimed. A company certified only in quality is telling you something very different from one certified in all three.
HACCP is the international system for managing food safety hazards. Cleaning is a critical control point anywhere food is handled: kitchens, hospitality, aged care, childcare, and food production.
What it guarantees you: in hygiene-critical areas, the provider is managing food safety risk to an audited standard, not just wiping surfaces. Essential if your site handles food in any form.
B Corp certification verifies a company's social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency across everything it does. It is demanding to earn and to keep.
What it guarantees you: the provider runs its entire business to a higher, independently verified standard. It signals values and governance, not just one process.
SEDEX, the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange, is a major platform for responsible sourcing data. Members are assessed on labour standards, health and safety, ethics, and environmental practices.
What it guarantees you: the provider has opened its labour and ethical practices to scrutiny through a recognised framework. Real value in an industry where exploitation is a genuine risk.
The Cleaning Accountability Framework is an Australian certification that assesses the cleaning supply chain of a specific building, checking cleaners are paid correctly, contracts are priced realistically, and workers are engaged directly. A building that passes earns a CAF star rating.
What it guarantees you: the people cleaning a building are paid and treated lawfully, verified by someone who spoke with them. Worth asking about if modern-slavery risk matters to your organisation.
Three habits help you use the badges well:
No single certification covers everything. Each checks a different corner of the business, so a provider with one impressive badge and nothing else has only been verified in that one corner.
That is why breadth is the real signal when you compare providers. A cleaner certified for quality but not safety, or environment but not labour, is quietly telling you where it has not been willing to be checked. Shortlist the ones whose certifications reach across sustainability, quality, safety, hygiene, and ethics together.
That is the standard we hold ourselves to. Cleancorp is:
Taken together, that means our whole business has been checked by someone other than us.
If you are trying to work out whose badges actually stand for something, we are happy to walk you through ours, certificates and all, with no jargon.
Get a free quote and we will show you what genuine certification looks like in practice.
There is no single mandatory certification, so the honest answer is that it depends on what you need the cleaner to do. As a general guide, look for coverage across five areas: quality, safety, environment, ethics, and hygiene. In practice that usually means ISO 9001 for quality and ISO 45001 for safety, ISO 14001 or an EcoVadis medal for environmental and sustainability performance, SEDEX or CAF for labour and ethical practices, and HACCP if your site handles food in any form. A provider that holds a spread across these areas has been independently checked on the things that carry the most risk in cleaning. We go deeper into this in our guide to what certifications a cleaning company should have, but breadth is the key idea: one badge on its own rarely tells the whole story.
This is one of the most useful distinctions to understand during procurement, because the two words are often used as though they mean the same thing. "Certified" means an accredited third party has formally audited the business against a standard and issued a certificate, which can be checked and which expires and must be renewed. "Compliant", "aligned", or "in line with" usually means the company says it follows the principles of a standard, but nobody independent has verified that claim. The gap between the two is exactly where risk hides. When you see softer wording on a tender, it is always worth asking directly whether the provider is certified, and requesting a copy of the current certificate rather than taking the language at face value.
They overlap in spirit but measure different things. EcoVadis is a sustainability scorecard that rates a business on environment, labour and human rights, ethics, and sustainable procurement, then ranks it against thousands of other assessed companies and awards a medal. It is especially useful if you report on your own supply chain. B Corp certification looks more broadly at the entire company, verifying its social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency across everything it does, and it is demanding to both earn and keep. In short, EcoVadis gives you a comparable, ranked sustainability score, while B Corp signals a whole-of-business commitment to operating to a higher standard. You can read more about why the EcoVadis rating matters in our dedicated EcoVadis explainer.
It depends entirely on your environment. HACCP is the international system for managing food safety hazards, and cleaning becomes a critical control point anywhere food is handled, including commercial kitchens, hospitality venues, aged care, childcare, and food production sites. If your premises fall into any of those categories, HACCP certification is genuinely important, because it means the provider manages food safety risk to an audited standard rather than simply wiping surfaces and hoping. If your site never handles food, HACCP is less relevant to you and other certifications will matter more. Our articles on what our HACCP certification means for you and how to clean a commercial kitchen to meet food safety standards explain how this works in practice.
The three ISO standards that come up most often each cover a different part of the business. ISO 9001 is about quality, meaning the provider has documented systems that deliver consistent service and a real process for fixing problems when they occur. ISO 14001 is about environmental management, so the company actively measures and reduces its impact from chemicals through to waste rather than just claiming to be green. ISO 45001 is about health and safety, with proper systems to protect both workers and your building, which matters a great deal when people handle chemicals in your workplace after hours. The important point is that "ISO certified" on its own tells you very little, so always ask which standards a provider holds. Our ISO certifications explainer breaks each one down further.
Start by asking for the actual certificates rather than relying on logos in a proposal, since a logo is easy to add and proves nothing on its own. Check that each certification is current, because they expire and need to be renewed through re-audit. Ask about scope too, as some certifications cover a head office or a single site rather than the specific team that will service your building. Where a certification is issued by a recognised body, you can often confirm it directly through that body's public register. Finally, match what you find to your own risks rather than being impressed by sheer quantity. A provider that is transparent about its certifications, and can talk you through how it maintains its quality control standards, is usually one that has nothing to hide.
Certified providers can sometimes cost a little more than the cheapest option on the market, but that difference reflects what sits behind the price. Earning and maintaining certifications takes real investment in training, systems, audits, fair wages, and quality products, and those are the same things that reduce your risk of a failed clean, a safety incident, underpaid workers in your supply chain, or a hygiene breach. Viewed that way, certification is less an added cost and more a form of insurance. It is also worth remembering that an unrealistically low quote often signals corners being cut somewhere, frequently on wages or compliance, which can become your problem later. The goal is not to chase the most badges, but to pay a fair price for verified standards that match your risks.
Because each certification only checks one corner of a business. A provider certified for quality but not safety, or for environment but not labour, has been verified in that one area and nowhere else, which quietly tells you where it has not been willing to be independently examined. Cleaning carries several distinct risks at once, spanning worker welfare, safety, environmental impact, service consistency, and hygiene, and no single standard covers all of them. That is why breadth is the real signal when you compare providers. A spread of certifications across sustainability, quality, safety, hygiene, and ethics means the whole business has been checked by someone other than the company itself, which is a far stronger guarantee than one standout badge sitting on its own.