Rethinking what a washroom is for: Why inclusive hygiene is becoming a sustainability priority

For facility managers, the washroom stopped being a purely functional space some time ago. It shapes how visitors experience a building, colours perceptions of hygiene, and signals how seriously an organisation takes sustainability.

Sustainability has usually been measured in emissions, water and waste, with accessibility treated as a separate conversation about compliance. However, a washroom designed to make hygiene accessible to everyone is one more people actually end up using. Inclusive design is what gets sustainability adopted at scale, not just what makes it lighter on materials.

Poor washroom standards affect customer satisfaction, employee wellbeing and how a brand gets perceived, in turn impeding on business outcomes. Research from Tork, an Essity brand, found that 74% of respondents expected moderate or high hygiene standards in public washrooms, yet only 20% felt those standards were met. More than half took some kind of action after a poor experience, whether that meant complaining, cutting back on food and drink, or avoiding a venue altogether, and each of those reactions is also a sustainable washroom system going unused.

This year, the Amsterdam Innovation Awards' Sustainability & Environment category went to an initiative built around closing that gap.

Case study: How Tork Hygiene for All is redefining inclusive washroom design

The winner was Tork Hygiene for All, an initiative built around a simple idea. Facility managers, the team argues, have "an opportunity to reevaluate the role of washrooms, not just as operational necessities, but as strategic assets."

Rather than centring on a single product, Hygiene for All brings inclusive design, operational efficiency and environmental performance together in one programme.

Inclusive solutions that are designed with sustainability in mind

One key part of the initiative is a dispenser development process that became the first in the world to achieve EN17161 Design for All certification, built around people of differing abilities and life stages.

A set of practical tools sits alongside that certification, and the same logic runs through each one, since a solution only cuts waste at scale if enough people use it.

Tork PeakServe® Automatic, the highest capacity paper towel dispenser on the market, releases towels in under a second, a design that works regardless of dexterity or reach, so more people reach for it instead of workarounds that use more paper. Tork PaperCircle® runs the world's first paper hand towel recycling service, giving used towels a second life instead of sending them to landfill. Tork Period Care dispensers make essential hygiene products easier to access without a separate distribution setup. Tork also publishes a washroom guide with concrete steps for closing accessibility gaps.

Why sustainable washrooms are easier to maintain

Users and cleaning teams were both part of the brief from the start, and the environmental case and the operational one reinforce each other here too. Higher-capacity dispensers mean fewer restocking trips, while the wider system saves cleaning teams time without sacrificing anything for the person using the washroom.

Fewer refills and clearer guidance let organisations open washrooms up to more people without asking more of the teams who keep them running, or of the planet.

How inclusive hygiene is setting the industry benchmark

The jury recognised the initiative for going beyond product innovation to address inclusivity in public washrooms, and for helping set new benchmarks across the sector.

Winning gave Tork a bigger stage to make the underlying argument rather than the marketing one, that a sustainable washroom system only delivers on its promise if it works for everyone who walks in. EN17161 is still rare in washroom design, but as more facilities get judged on accessibility alongside emissions and waste, it may not stay optional for long.