Indoor air quality should be easier
Indoor air quality should be easy, right?
Well, as many of us have learned over the last year, that’s just not the reality. There is no easy button. The air we breathe is complex and affects us in profound ways, some of which we don’t perceive until too late. That’s unmistakable now, even for those of us who are not in public health or aerosol science.
IAQ is hard to see
What if we had a comprehensive way to make indoor air quality more visible?
The truth is, the vast majority of designers, builders, operators and owners of the built environment, whether commercial or institutional spaces, have not had enough information to make impactful improvements in indoor air quality (abbreviated “IAQ”). Information in this context comes in at least three important forms: foundational knowledge of indoor air quality, codes and standards that clarify IAQ and HVAC leading practices, and data that enables operators and engineers to monitor and proactively improve IAQ and which later informs future designs.
To address this information gap, to help filter some of the noise from the industry (which is itself at pandemic scale at the present moment), and to promote a data-driven and realistic approach to IAQ, including how it fits in with sustainability concerns, my firm System2, a consulting and engineering services practice specializing in high performance buildings and operational technology, has joined forces with four leading technology and product companies—Awair, Clockworks Analytics, enVerid, and SafeTraces—to create the Alliance for Sustainable & Practical IAQ in Real Estate (ASPIRE). Here's a link to the press release.
The Alliance is for now, as we just get off the ground, simply a vehicle to provide and promote consistent messaging, thought leadership and market education on leading practices related to indoor air quality and its intersection with sustainability. Our message is largely targeted towards the West, where IAQ has in recent history been less of a focus than energy and sustainability goals, and especially the U.S. market (again, for now), which has been particularly blind to IAQ across commercial and institutional asset classes. Let’s face it: we Americans have a very robust market to buy things and signal our wellness virtues but not a very strong understanding of what to do and why. There is a better way. Our founding members have joined together because each provides a complementary piece of the puzzle, and together we are better positioned to cooperatively, comprehensively, and directly address the practical IAQ challenges of today’s buildings.
The information gap is not a new problem for buildings and has been well-catalogued by the annals of smart building, clean-tech and sustainability participants in the context of energy efficiency for decades. But the recognition of the gap for IAQ has been changing in the West, where many markets, certainly including the U.S., have been well behind much of Asia on IAQ, mostly because so many Asian cities have had to grapple with terribly high outdoor air pollution levels for a long time, and buildings provide a needed defense for people. The growing IAQ awareness trend in N. America, where outside of a few select markets (namely, L.A.) outdoor air is not regularly polluted to significantly problematic levels, is largely thanks to the efforts of many in public health (the pandemic), academics (the pandemic), Mother Nature (the pandemic + epic wildfires), the growth of wellness-focused building certifications, and the well-crafted and targeted book “Healthy Buildings” by Joseph Allen and John Macomber of Harvard, among others. (Note: I took classes taught by Prof. Macomber as an MBA student at HBS in real estate development and sustainable cities, and he was sponsor of a field study I worked on with classmates on data-driven building operations for McKinstry over a decade ago.)
It is noteworthy that most of these drivers are very recent. We have a lot of lost time to make up for, and my own career is no exception. Building performance isn’t just about energy, and I, for my part, was probably too late to understand that such a definition is no longer complete. But I’ve been evolving quickly for the past five years or so, and what I’ve come to believe is this: in the broadest sense, buildings are products that need to do things for the people who use them, occupants and managers. In particular, they need to do three types of things: provide a positive user experience, promote health & safety, and operate efficiently & sustainably. Indoor air quality is a significant component of all three.
IAQ as a relevant concept for built environments has also been made more of a reality by the individual efforts of many companies innovating in the building technology or “prop-tech” arena. IAQ monitoring solutions, as one cogent example, have made environmental sensing analogous to metering for electric energy or domestic water. Air sensors are arguably now the most viable application of IoT technology in buildings, close in the running with water leak detection. IAQ monitors are, in many ways, already much simpler and are certainly less costly than meters per unit to install (no dangerous line voltage or electricians involved). Add in another change agent, building certification standards, particularly those that are focused on occupant health & wellness (notably, WELL) and on monitoring actual building performance (RESET, AirRated, LEED ARC), and you start to see the evolution towards a world where IAQ data is collected, made useful and utilized to verify and optimize performance, much like its older siblings energy and sustainability.
This is actually 100% a reality today. And there have been similar important advances in:
· HVAC analytics, commonly called “fault detection & diagnostics” (FDD),
· Testing for health & safety risk of airborne pathogens,
· Filtration and air cleaning systems that improve IAQ sustainably and can even reduce energy use,
· Foundational operational technology: building automation systems, control guidelines, and data standards.
These products and ideas, their application in buildings, and supporting services are the domain of ASPIRE’s founding members.
ASPIRE founders
have complementary capabilities and experience driving real-world IAQ outcomes in the built environment.
Because of these and countless other innovations, in many ways IAQ is becoming more easy. However, innovation alone is a necessary but not sufficient condition. What I’ve observed over and over talking to and working with industry participants on both the supply and demand side is that decision-makers and stakeholders need a framework to pull it all together. We created ASPIRE in large part to do just that. We believe the best strategy consists of five objectives (in no particular order of priority):
1. Monitor and improve indoor air quality (IAQ) and ventilation systems,
2. Measure and reduce pathogen transmission and illness risk,
3. Reduce energy costs and carbon emissions,
4. Demonstrate success and leadership through certification,
5. Direct investment to the highest value opportunities and solutions.
The best strategy
for addressing indoor air quality should be comprehensive, sustainable, practical and data-driven. We believe leaders should focus on these core five objectives.
Over the coming weeks, you will hear more from the other founding members on their specific areas of focus, value drivers, and how they support these five objectives, and about how certain components of the strategy work together to create synergies. In the meantime, if you have any questions on ASPIRE, please direct them to me (aaron@system2consulting.com), and also follow our LinkedIn page and visit aspireiaq.com. We will also be creating more opportunities for participation and engagement as a community of interest in the near future, so stay tuned.
