Care for cleaners’ hands took social enterprise down a profitable path
Speco now derives much of its revenue from its non-toxic cleaning solutions, attracting customers like Changi Airport, Singapore Airlines
WHEN Benjamin Chua was running cleaning services company Spic & Span in 2017, he noticed many of his elderly workers had damaged fingerprints from years-long exposure to toxic chemicals.
That spurred Chua to spend the next two years developing Speco, an antimicrobial coating that would be safe for both the environment and humans.
Spic & Span was rebranded as Speco in 2020. The company has since pivoted away from cleaning services – which now comprise only 10 per cent of its revenue – to focus on manufacturing cleaning solutions that kill viruses, bacteria and mould.
Speco clinched the Impact Enterprise Excellence Award for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at this year’s inaugural Sustainability Impact Awards, which was organised by UOB and The Business Times (BT).
The judges recognised Speco’s commitment towards social impact, through its efforts to upskill persons with disabilities, as well as its pay-it-forward initiative, where it conducts pro bono work for charities and provides discounted services for impact organisations.
“From the get-go, we wanted to create something that would be durable and sustainable,” Chua told BT in an interview.
All the SME’s products have been lab-tested and certified to be non-toxic and biodegradable. They are also non-corrosive and non-leaching on all material types.
According to Chua, at least 75 per cent of the ingredients used in Speco’s products are sustainably sourced. Its proprietary antimicrobial formulation is registered with the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The company’s supply chain has also been audited to ensure no harmful toxins or hazardous wastes are released into the environment from its factories, he added.
SEE ALSO
Hitting these environmental targets has contributed to Speco’s B Corporation Certification score of 96.5, which it earned in 2020. B Corps are companies privately verified to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.
The company resubmitted its accreditation for review this year, and Chua expects its overall score to be 30 per cent higher.
Scaling up during Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic was a clear catalyst for Speco to scale up its business.
Its antiviral coating tested effective against the coronavirus, and so was applied on surfaces across Singapore – “from (aircraft) to banks, automated teller machines and lift lobbies”, said Chua.
As a result, Speco’s year-on-year revenue quadrupled from 2019 to 2020. It has continued “sustaining that level of growth” for the last three years, he added.
The company serves over 200 organisations today, including Changi Airport Group, Singapore Airlines, DBS Bank and Singtel.
But quick growth was no excuse for Speco to rest on its laurels, said Chua.
Instead, the company has been reinvesting its earnings into creating more sustainable products.
It had a breakthrough in 2021, when it managed to extract active ingredients from the cypress plant to create a new plant-based formulation. Cypress has antimicrobial properties, and can help clean the air and spaces, said Chua.
Up until then, all of Speco’s products were synthetic-based formulations. The company has since rolled out two new lines of cleaning products: plant-based series Speco+, and bio-based series Speco+ Probiotics.
“It’s a global trend – we see more consumers and businesses being receptive towards environmentally-friendly and environmentally-beneficial products,” said Chua.
“We were quite lucky that this was our research and development mandate right from the start.”
Creating social impact
As a champion for inclusivity and diversity, Chua has always strived to create equal opportunities for disadvantaged and marginalised groups.
For instance, Spic & Span was a social enterprise that employed low-income workers, ex-offenders, the elderly, as well as persons with physical and intellectual disabilities.
He has carried this mission over to Speco, too.
In 2021, the company partnered the Association for Persons with Special Needs (APSN) to set up a facility within the APSN Centre for Adults at the Kembangan-Chai Chee Community Hub. Today, every bottle of cleaning solution manufactured by Speco is filled, capped and labelled by individuals from APSN.
Automation has also been key to helping Speco upskill its workers.
One of its newest products is Speco Ion, a smart device that purifies the air and sanitises surfaces by automatically dispensing Speco+.
With Speco Ion, the company’s workers no longer need to make weekly trips to customers’ offices to manually sanitise their workspaces.
They simply have to drop off Speco Ion at the customer’s building and let the machine do its job, said Chua.
Not only does this reduce the company’s carbon footprint, but it also frees up Speco’s workers to perform higher-value tasks, such as training and development, he added.
In the long run, Chua sees Speco as an “enabler” for sustainability among other enterprises.
Earlier this year, the company began collaborating with material players to embed its proprietary antimicrobial formulation into their product lines, such as furniture or dining ware.
Each new product launched has to contribute to a social cause, said Chua.
For instance, Speco is currently working with furniture company Pepperwall to design an acoustic panel with air-purifying properties. A portion of the profits will be donated to organisations that support the deaf or hard of hearing, he said.
“Whether it’s through licensing or partnerships, what we really want to do is enable more of these companies to move up along the value chain with us,” he said.
Decoding Asia newsletter: your guide to navigating Asia in a new global order. Delivered to your inbox. Free.
Copyright SPH Media. All rights reserved.
