Sustainability, and who checked it.
Sustainability claims are easy to write and hard to check. Ours rest on an Environmental Product Declaration, ISO 14001 certification and an EcoVadis rating, not one of which we issue ourselves, and on two commitments that reach past the machines altogether.
Our position
Sustainability in floor cleaning comes down to two things a machine can be designed for, using less while it works and lasting longer before it is replaced. Proving either is the one part that cannot be engineered.
What we design against
Four decisions, taken at the drawing board.
Not a policy and not a pledge. These are the choices that decide what it costs the planet to keep a floor clean, and they are made before a machine is built.
Less water goes down, so less of everything follows.
Brush and squeegee design settles how much water goes down, not tank size.
Floor cleaned per charge, not hours switched on.
A machine that runs longer on a weaker clean is not more efficient, only slower.
Built to be repaired, not replaced.
Parts are specified for repair, with a service life of up to seven years against an average of four.
Assessed by people who do not work here.
A number nobody outside the company has checked is a marketing claim, not a measurement.
A machine that uses less is only worth having if it still cleans the floor.
Working a retail floor in opening hours, quiet enough to run with people in the room rather than after everyone has gone home.
Independently assessed
Three environmental credentials, each issued by an outside body.
Environmental Product Declaration
A life-cycle document, verified against a published standard, stating a product's environmental impact from materials through to end of life.
ISO 14001
Certification of the environmental management system behind the products, audited by an outside body and re-audited to keep it.
EcoVadis
Rated Bronze, in the top 35% of companies assessed worldwide, on environment, labour and human rights, ethics and sustainable procurement.
Security and availability are held to the same principle. The SOC 3 report covers the platform our robots report into, and it is examined by an outside auditor rather than described by us. Read about our SOC 3 certification.
Our partnerships
Two commitments beyond the machine.
One tree planted for every robot sold.
Evertreen connects companies to reforestation projects and reports back on what actually went into the ground. LionsBot funds planting in Indonesia and Honduras, where native species including teak and meranti are going back into rainforest that has been cleared.
In Indonesia that forest is habitat for the Sumatran tiger and the Javan rhinoceros. Both projects also fund sustainable forestry work and education with the communities living alongside them.
- 7,100
- Trees planted
- 2
- Countries reforested
- 5,190
- Tonnes of CO₂ offset
A year of the robot's water, given back.
Water is what a scrubber runs on, so it is the thing we owe. For every robot sold, LionsBot funds a year of that robot's water consumption as clean drinking water through charity: water.
charity: water works through local partners on community-owned projects and proves each one with photographs and GPS coordinates. LionsBot's funding has gone to piped systems at Hazikhali and Daudpur in Bangladesh, where clean water is scarce.
- 34.2M
- Litres funded, estimated
- 2
- Piped systems built
- 2
- Communities in Bangladesh
In the community
Teaching robotics, not just selling it.
The environmental work is half of it. The other half puts the subject in front of people who would not otherwise get near it.
Hands-on robotics workshops for disadvantaged children.
Sessions where children build and programme a robot themselves, run for those who would not otherwise get the chance.
Code in the Community
Sponsoring RoboClash at SUTD.
LionsBot sponsors the robotics competition run at the Singapore University of Technology and Design. The company's first robot was built with a professor from that university, so the connection is not a new one.
RoboClash 2023Common questions
The questions people actually ask.
Brush and squeegee design decide how much water has to go down to lift the same soil, so the saving is engineered in rather than rationed at the tap. Drawing less water also means less to carry, fewer refills part-way through a shift and less to pump away afterwards. A dry vacuum uses no water at all.
The design service life is up to seven years, against an average of about four years for cleaning robots. Parts are specified so a machine can be repaired and kept working rather than replaced, which is what spreads the footprint of building it across more years of use.
Three: an ISO 14001 certification, an Environmental Product Declaration and an EcoVadis rating. The credentials section above sets out what each one covers. What they have in common is that the assessment is somebody else's work, so each can be checked against the body that issued it rather than taken on trust.
No. The robot takes the open floor, and the same person does restrooms, edges, glass and detail work, which is the part of the job a machine cannot do. What changes is how much a team gets through in a shift, not how many people are on it.
Two commitments, and both are counted per robot sold rather than pledged as a yearly sum, so they scale with the business instead of being set again each year. The partnerships section above gives the projects, the countries and the running totals, and both partners publish those totals themselves, so the figures can be checked without going through us.
Yes, two programmes, and both are robotics teaching rather than general giving: LionsBot runs hands-on workshops for children and sponsors a university robotics competition. The community section above names both and links to what was written about each at the time.
Talk to the right team.
Tell us where you are and what you need cleaned, or go straight to the dealer application if you sell cleaning equipment.
