Moving forward together: How Tzorg, CSU and Zizo are working on sustainable mobility

Social and environmental impact are two key pillars in the sustainable operations of Total Care, the parent company of cleaning organizations CSU and Zizo and home care organization Tzorg. Marthijn ter Averst, sales manager at NS Zakelijk, spoke with Niels van Geenhuizen, manager of sustainability, and Stef Jelier, manager of employment conditions & HR digitalization. They spoke enthusiastically about their sustainability ambitions and the guiding role they play within the sector.

About Total Care

Total Care is the holding company behind cleaning organizations CSU and Zizo and home care organization Tzorg. The family business was founded in 1968 as a sole proprietorship in Uden by Cor van der Heijden. A total of almost 30,000 employees work in the Netherlands. Sustainability, innovation and being a good employer are of paramount importance to Total Care.

What is your organization like?

We currently have almost 30,000 employees, who can be roughly divided into three “blood groups. We have our office workers. That's what most of the Netherlands can be compared to: commuters or field service positions with mostly a leased car. We have our cleaners, who often work at fixed times and locations and partly 24/7. And we have our home helpers who visit one, two, sometimes three clients a day. So we actually see a very varied pattern in mobility.

How do you deal with this great diversity in travel behavior?

The dynamics are enormous. To give you an idea: at T-zorg we visit 70,000 addresses every two weeks, and at CSU it's about 15,000. So there's a huge logistical operation behind that, partly because employees travel to their work location directly from home, so not through the office. Many of our employees work in different neighborhoods, and some have multiple appointments a day, sometimes in locations that are difficult to reach by public transportation.

I can imagine this presents many challenges in terms of mobility?

Our ambition is to be carbon neutral by 2030 for scope 1 and 2 and by 2040 for scope 3. Specifically, that means looking at everything related to energy and mobility. We have, as mentioned, a diverse group of employees with different travel patterns. Among both our cleaners and home helpers, we see an increase in mobility poverty. Many of them have small contracts and cannot afford a car. At the same time, public transport is not always a viable option because working hours are early in the morning and (late) in the evening. Moreover, the locations are not always easily accessible by public transport or in places you would rather not cycle in the dark such as an abandoned industrial area.

And what about your people in the offices?

We have thirteen properties around the country because we like to be close to our customers and we work nationwide. From history, many of our premises are in a business park because often some storage was needed. Those are not the best accessible places by public transport or bicycle. So we are also looking at whether we should be in other locations. We have a large group of employees who are really very mobile. They are always with clients and on the road. So the car remains important, but the others we want to encourage and maybe also start obliging to travel more sustainably by bicycle and public transport, even if it's only for part of their trips.

How are you trying to make mobility more sustainable?

We now have an NS Business Card for all office employees, allowing them to travel both for business and private purposes. This makes employees more aware of their travel habits and lowers the threshold for more sustainable travel. But it also offers an extra condition of employment with which we can distinguish ourselves because not many parties in our sectors offer this. We are also working on a broader vision towards 2040. This is about more sustainable buildings, better accessibility and reducing car use. But it is also in the details: extending shifts or adjusting working hours can already change the need for certain travel patterns.

To what extent is sustainability woven into your organization?

Sustainability is deep in our DNA. We are a family business, and that means we look beyond the short term. We are not only concerned with the environment, but also with social sustainability. Our Executive Board has set clear goals, such as reducing our CO2 emissions by 50% by 2026. This requires targeted actions, such as making our mobility more sustainable. For example: 46% of our emissions come from travel behavior. If we organize that better, we can make significant steps.

Can you name a concrete example?

It starts with awareness within the organization. Take for example our focus on daytime cleaning: by deploying cleaners during the day instead of in the early morning and evening, they no longer have to travel back and forth twice and at the same time we improve their work-life balance. There are also more opportunities during the day to replace the car with bicycle or public transport. A great example is also how our teams organize events in OV-friendly locations. That rarely happened before. It's a subtle change, but shows how sustainability is increasingly being integrated into our daily doings.

Social impact is an important value within Total Care. What are you doing in that area?

One of our goals is to make black work white. This is what we founded Zizo for. To give you an idea: the turnover of the cleaning market is about 4.5 billion of which about 1.5 billion is black. This has to do with the Dutch tax and allowance system. If you want to work more hours as a cleaner you will pay more taxes but often lose a large part of your allowances. We want to show with Zizo that things can be done differently. With this we also hope to start a movement in the sector and in The Hague. It is not only about fair pay, but also about a stable and legal working environment for employees with sustainable ergonomic tools and materials.

Can you cite another example?

Our employees have more than 130 different nationalities. So we have to take into account cultural diversity and sometimes limited language skills in our companies. For example, we make visual employment contracts of 1 A4 so that everyone understands what is expected of them. Another example is our Fresh in your Work program with more than 25 measures to keep our colleagues mentally, financially and physically healthy. For example, there is free physical therapy, free budget coaching and free psychological support available where needed.

What is your dream in terms of mobility?

It would be great if all our employees had access to affordable sustainable mobility, both business and personal. Imagine a public transport card to which we could also add a travel credit, for example, as a year-end bonus, similar to a call credit. So that our people can also travel to their families or an amusement park by public transport. And in addition, we also arrange a good bicycle for everyone. Then we will have our sustainable mobility fundamentally in place. We are committed to making the sustainable alternative available. That's what we're going for!