TDS Commercial and the GLARE Initiative

Sustainability in the commercial laundry sector has come a long way in a short time. What was once a conversation about good intentions has become one about accountability and measurable progress. And for us, we are proud to be at the forefront of promoting methods and processes to help commercial laundries become more sustainable.

One of the most significant recent developments in our industry is the launch of the GLARE platform (Global Laundry and Rental Emissions) developed by the Textile Services Association. TDS Commercial was involved in the extensive testing of the platform before its launch, and we've been supporters of the initiative from the outset.

What is GLARE?

GLARE is a carbon calculation platform, designed to help commercial laundries measure their carbon footprint based on the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) protocol. This allows the industry to record and track carbon emissions using a well-established methodology, enabling users to report and implement effective carbon reduction plans. Increasingly, operators in industries such as hospitality, healthcare and manufacturing are scrutinising their suppliers' sustainability credentials, and GLARE will give them clear and comparable data about carbon emissions.

Being based on the GHG Protocol allows the laundry industry to build on the same methodology that businesses across every sector already use, meaning the data produced by using GLARE can slot directly into their clients' reporting processes.

A platform built for the whole industry

One of the things that makes GLARE useful is that it has been designed with accessibility in mind. Access to GLARE is free for TSA members and the platform includes a downloadable Data Helper Tool which gives users an insight into the kind of data they need to be collecting and guidance on how to categorise data points. There are recommended data options such as spend analysis or tonnage against different categories making GLARE a flexible and intuitive powerful platform.

As Rona Tait, Founder and Managing Director of TDS Commercial, reflects:

"GLARE has been designed to be easy to use. It's been created with a wide range of laundry businesses in mind, and it will be very useful to independent businesses who want a good benchmark to measure themselves against their own baseline numbers."

The platform covers each Scope from 1 to 3, so members can see what aspects of their operation fall into which Scope. For smaller and independent operators who may not have had the resources to undertake detailed emissions assessments previously, GLARE effectively lowers the barrier to entry, making robust carbon measurement accessible across the industry, not just for the largest operators.

What does this mean in practice?

For our clients, the development of GLARE has a direct and practical implication. As Scope 3 reporting requirements tighten, hospitality operators are increasingly required to evidence not just their own environmental performance, but that of the partners they work with.

The ability for a laundry provider to supply carbon data that is standardised and independently framed (rather than self-reported and unverifiable) is a meaningful shift. Combined with our EcoVadis Platinum rating, which places TDS Commercial in the top 1% of companies assessed globally for sustainability performance, and our operational investments in water management technology and ozone processing, GLARE is another step in building a supply chain relationship our clients can measure, report and trust.