I am excited to share our new paper that was just published:
“Integrating Health and Indoor Air Quality into European Building Policy: A Landmark Policy Shift”
https://lnkd.in/enm57ntA
Europe, for the first time ever, has embedded health and indoor air quality requirements into energy building policy. This is a global first, at this scale. We spend 90% of our time indoors, and yet we do not have health-based standards for the air we breathe inside. Europe is about to undergo a major change in this historical divide between energy building policy and public health.
This is a big deal.
For decades, building policy has prioritized energy efficiency—often without fully accounting for impacts on human health. EU’s update begins to change that, integrating indoor environmental quality into the core of how buildings are designed, renovated, and evaluated. The updated policy calls for indoor air quality standards and requirements for monitoring in all new (non-residential) buildings, among other items. You can’t manage what you don’t measure! Monitoring is a first step towards decreasing the invisible threat from airborne particles, pathogens, allergens, and gases.
EU Member States have a narrow window to get this right. In the paper, we outline key recommendations for policymakers, public health officials, and advocates:
1) Take advantage of this opportunity to establish a framework for indoor air that prioritizes public health (e.g., establish health-based indoor air quality standards)
2) Establish a community of practice to share best practices
3) Implement harmonized standards based on recommendations from REHVA, Eurovent, and Nordic Ventilation Group across all European buildings to avoid a patchwork framework.
4) Develop template legislative language
Thank you to co-authors Pawel Wargocki, Skandan Ananthasekar, and Porter Culp.
And thanks to the global community at Air Club (https://airclub.org/) where we are driving action through the Global Pledge for Healthy Indoor Air.
Brown University Pandemic Center
Hear, hear!