Anyone who thinks the Space Needle in Seattle looks cleaner these days is right, thanks to the scrubbing it got over the summer from a German cleaning company, Alfred Kärcher.

The landmark is just one beneficiary of Kärcher’s corporate giving program, which has cleaned many of the world’s most famous structures, including the Christ the Redeemer sculpture overlooking Rio de Janeiro and the presidents’ faces on Mount Rushmore.

Kärcher’s program is an example of how companies are increasingly using their equipment and expertise in corporate philanthropy. Federal Express, for example, lends a fleet of trucks to nonprofits, and Pfizer sends employees to put their skills to use with nonprofit groups around the world for several months at a time.

“Certainly it is good publicity and marketing for us,” said Hartmut Jenner, Kärcher’s chairman. “But we also have learned things through it that have helped our business.”