Debbie Jones, National Account Manager at Miele Professional UK, looks at how care homes can cut laundry-related energy use without compromising hygiene or resident care.
With continued pressure on energy costs and growing expectations around sustainability, energy efficiency has become a defining priority for UK care home operators. Providers are increasingly reassessing where savings can be made without compromising standards of care, and laundry, one of the most resource-intensive functions in any care setting, is now central to that conversation.
Care home laundry facilities operate continuously throughout the day, processing everything from bed linen and towels to residents’ personal clothing. This places significant demand on water, electricity and heat. Yet despite that pressure, standards cannot slip, particularly for more vulnerable residents. Correctly processed laundry plays a direct role in infection prevention, comfort and dignity, not simply presentation.
This raises a clear question: how can care homes reduce energy consumption while still delivering safe, compliant, high-quality laundry outcomes?
On-premise laundry (OPL) is one route providers are exploring. Processing textiles in-house gives care teams greater control, reducing reliance on external services, minimising lost items and cutting transport-related energy use. It also allows staff to respond quickly to individual needs, whether that means prioritising certain loads or maintaining consistency in how residents’ garments are handled.
The efficiency of any OPL setup, however, depends heavily on the equipment behind it. Domestic machines, still used in some smaller homes, were never designed for continuous commercial use. Lower load capacities, longer cycle times, limited hygiene programming and higher resource consumption can all restrict productivity and push up running costs over time.
Commercial laundry systems are designed specifically to address this. Miele Professional’s Benchmark range, for example, is built for high-throughput environments, with machines tested for up to 30,000 hours of operation at full capacity, intended to reduce disruption from breakdowns in demanding care settings.
Efficiency-focused technology also plays a part. High-performance spin speeds remove more moisture during the wash cycle, cutting drying time and associated energy use, while intelligent programme controls adjust water, energy and detergent levels to each load, aiming to maintain hygiene performance while reducing waste. According to Miele, its Benchmark systems can achieve up to 17% lower water consumption and 30% less energy use than earlier models, with heat pump dryers cutting energy use by as much as 60% compared with conventional dryers.
Across multiple daily cycles, these savings accumulate. Even small reductions in energy use can translate into meaningful cost savings over a year, helping providers manage tight budgets while maintaining hygiene and presentation standards.
There is also an operational benefit. Equipment built for continuous use tends to experience fewer breakdowns, which means fewer disruptions to laundry schedules during busy periods, and less pressure on staff managing day-to-day operations.
As care homes continue to balance financial pressure with rising expectations, laundry is becoming a more strategic function rather than a background task. Get the equipment and processes right, and it can support energy efficiency, compliance and care standards simultaneously, rather than forcing a trade-off between them.
