Why We Have to Rethink Indoor Air Quality Policies in the Workplace
Liam Bates, Buildings Magazine | Sept 23, 2024
How do you address IAQ in your spaces? Here’s how you can go above and beyond code to optimize the health and wellbeing of people in your building.
If you asked a building or facilities professional how they address indoor air quality (IAQ) in their spaces, they would probably point you in the direction of building code. The problem is that the building code is only designed to meet the minimum standards for air quality. In other words, the code aims to minimize health issues related to poor IAQ, instead of going above and beyond to optimize the health and wellbeing of the people inside.
Certain building certifications like WELL, LEED, and Fitwel provide deeper guidance into how buildings can ensure their occupants breathe clean air, but there’s still a lack of consensus among these certifications. Plus, many of these are just recommendations and not strictly enforced. As a result, we only see a small percentage of buildings that actually pursue and achieve these certifications.
Ultimately, it’s up to each company to decide which IAQ policies they are willing to commit to, and who will take ownership—the facilities team, building engineers, the workplace team, and even the HR team all play a role in this.
Before we can get into the details of how we should plan and execute an IAQ project, the crucial first step is understanding why we should care so much about improving the air our occupants and employees breathe.
The Silent Killer of 7 Million People
A common misconception many people have is that poor air quality only affects certain parts of the world (we’ve all seen pictures of Beijing during heavy pollution). The truth is, less than 1% of people around the world breathe air that meets the World Health Organization (WHO) standards. The health-related consequences of this can be devastating, from infections and heart disease to stroke and respiratory distress.
In total, the cumulative impact of outdoor and indoor air pollution results in 7 million premature deaths each year worldwide. To put that number into context, poor IAQ has a greater impact on our health and quality of life than malaria, HIV, drugs, alcohol, and even war. The data couldn’t be more clear: air quality is a crisis that can no longer be ignored, and we have to start doing something about it.
The Role of the Workplace in Improving Health and Wellbeing
Tackling air pollution is too big of a job for one person to handle, but there is a way that workplace leaders can help protect their employees from the health-related impacts of breathing polluted air. It all starts with the air that circulates your building.
Unlike outdoor air, we can completely control the air that’s inside our buildings. That means poor IAQ is a 100% solvable problem! Because we spend 90% of our time indoors, an effective IAQ solution can drastically reduce the amount of polluted air we breathe every day. As an employer, building owner/operator, or facility management professional, you could potentially have a greater positive impact on your occupants’ health and well-being than their doctors—just by improving the air they breathe at work.
Looking Beyond Building Code and Prescriptive Metrics
Improving IAQ in the workplace requires a shift in how we think about our spaces. First and foremost, we have to see code for what it is: a checklist (i.e., a “this building hopefully won’t kill you” checklist). Meeting code criteria is a necessary first step to having a healthy building, but we have to be more aspirational and go above and beyond what the code requires to promote health and wellbeing, instead of simply trying to prevent employees from getting sick.
The second part of the equation is changing how we evaluate air quality. Many buildings rely on prescriptive engineering metrics, like HVAC set points and airflow rates, to get an idea of how effectively their building delivers fresh air. The challenge here is twofold. First, these metrics are only meaningful to engineers. Second, they don’t measure or guarantee outcomes…