Page 20 - European Energy Innovation - winter 2018 publication

20 Winter 2018 European Energy Innovation
INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Indoor Environmental Quality:
towards healthier buildings for
the occupants
By Roberta D’Angiolella (Buildings Performance Institute Europe, BPIE)
We spend most of
our life in buildings: comfort and ability to work.
homes, schools,
offices, bars and
more, amounting to 90% of our time
being indoors, impacting our health,
productivity and well-being. If this
number is coupled with the fact
that air quality is one of the major
environmental health concerns for
Europe and the high number of
deaths caused by indoor air
pollution in particular, it is easy
to conclude that the way we feel
while being indoor is of paramount
importance.
THE ELEMENTS OF INDOOR
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
But what is considered when
evaluating our comfort and well-
being indoor? The answer is
Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ),
consisting of four key elements:
• Indoor air quality, referring to the
quality of the air inside buildings
We spend most of our life in buildings:
homes, schools, offices, bars and more,
amounting to 90% of our time being indoors,
impacting our health, productivity and
well-being.
and related to people’s health,
• Thermal comfort, strongly linked
to environmental factors such as
air temperature and humidity as
well as to personal factors (clothing a good IEQ if they are to be at the
insulation, metabolic heat). When
building occupants feel too warm,
it can cause a feeling of tiredness,
when they feel too cold, they can be
restless and distracted, resulting in Many times, however, people complain
productivity losses and discomfort.
• Lighting combined with daylight,
necessary to perform various
visual activities efficiently and
accurately, and with a significant
positive impact on the overall
health and sleep quality of office
workers.
• Acoustic comfort, the capacity
to protect building occupants
from ‘unwanted sound’ which can
prevent speech communication,
disturb activities and
concentration, and at high levels
even cause hearing damage.
These elements play a key role in in
our everyday lives: buildings should
therefore be designed to ensure
service of their occupants.
THE ROLE OF BUILDING
OCCUPANTS IN IEQ
about high-performing buildings
where everything is supposed to work
well in an automatic way, without
possibility for the building occupant
to intervene, and in reality, it does not.
This is where, to build future-proof and
well-functioning buildings, subjective
evaluations become as important
as calculations and measurements.
As happiness and health are directly
proportionated to the level of comfort
offered by the buildings we live /
work / study in, building occupants’
surveys on the acceptance and
general perception of IEQ are a crucial
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