Run by its members for its members, the Cleaning & Hygiene Suppliers’ Association (CHSA) represents the majority of the UK’s major manufacturers and distributors of cleaning and hygiene products in the ‘away from home’ market.
On their behalf, the Association has a long-standing commitment to standards, which began in 1997 with the launch of the Manufacturing Standards Accreditation Scheme for Soft Tissue. Today the Association operates the highly respected Accreditation Schemes for Distributors and Manufactures of Plastic Sacks, Industrial Cotton Mops and Soft Tissue. Each is designed to make sure buyers of cleaning and hygiene products can be certain ’what’s on the box is what’s in the box’.
The Schemes have substance and bite. To join members must pass a rigorous audit of products and internal quality procedures, conducted by the CHSA’s Independent Inspector. Annual inspections thereafter make sure standards are maintained. Companies that consistently fail to meet the standards facing expulsion.
Inspection results consistently show high levels of compliance. The 2018 audit results for Accredited Distributors show an average of 97.5% compliance. Compliance for the other Scheme is well over 91% in all areas.
Building on this success, the CHSA is expanding the Schemes. From January 2020, every distributor member of the CHSA will be an Accredited Distributor.
Our standards. Your Guarantee.
Working in collaboration with the Cleaning Support Services Association (CSSA) and the Waste Management Industry Training & Advisory Board (WAMITAB), the CHSA is addressing the challenge of plastics in the sector. First establishing the scale of the challenge, the trio are developing a Plastics Pledge, which will be a statement of intent by all who sign up.
The CHSA has a long history of giving something back. It operates an Undergraduate Bursary Scheme, open to the children of its members’ employees. Today there are six talented undergraduates receiving a CHSA bursary of and the Association has made a commitment to award up to two a year, each year until 2022.
Thanks to the generosity of its members and their guests, the CHSA also raises thousands of pounds each year for the Chairman’s Charity. This has included giving over £23,000 to the RNIB for the production of talking books. For 2019, the Chairman has set the target of raising £10,000 for Grief Encounter to pay for a residential retreat for 30 young people who have suffered bereavement.
