Workshop
With the state of the art report as the basis, a workshop was held on November 21, 2007 in Rotterdam (Netherlands) to have a first discussion on the ways to improve indoor air quality. Thirty people comprising different stakeholders within the building sector (producers of building products, architects, buildings owners, consultants, standardization bodies and research organisation members), attended the meeting.
The programme and the summary of the meeting can be downloaded here. The issues raised during the discussion can be summarised as follows:
- In order to obtain good IAQ in buildings, it is necessary to select low emission products, but also to properly design, operate and maintain ventilation systems. Indoor air quality guidelines, which can be set as objectives to be reached, are also necessary as shown by experience from Finland and Japan
- People in charge of building product selection during building design are generally not aware of IAQ topics and do not have smart and simple tools for choosing low emission products. It is therefore necessary to transfer knowledge on IAQ towards people in charge of the design of indoor spaces. This should be done through education of all professionals (e.g. architects) and other stakeholders in the building sector and also through the development of terms of reference, simple tools and criteria, and technical specifications
- While good IAQ is generally not considered as a priority when designing buildings, the building sector has integrated the global concept of “sustainability” which covers a wide range of issues. Several workshop participants, including building owners, suggested that IAQ should be closely linked to “sustainability” since architects and industry already accepts the need for sustainable buildings. This link could have a broader impact than “IAQ only labels”
- Energy efficient buildings were regarded as a new challenge for the building sector. The drive to increase energy efficiency will probably lead to drastic changes in building design, to more insulation of the envelope, to the introduction of new synthetic materials and the reduction of ventilation. Those changes will certainly affect IAQ and therefore source control and ventilation optimisation should no longer be ignored otherwise energy efficient buildings will not be “healthy buildings”
- Several workshop participants expressed their wish for simple actions to be adopted based on current knowledge in order to achieve better IAQ now rather than await the outcome of further research which may recommend other actions at some undefined time in the future.