BSEE AIR QUALITY
Advertising: 01622 699116 Editorial: 01354 461430
MAKING A DIFFERENCE TO OCCUPANT HEALTH Small steps are needed to tackle pollution crisis
With air pollution at record levels in many UK cities, engineers must change their approach to safeguard the health of building occupants, according to Lochinvar Managing Director David Pepper.
ast year saw some startling headlines and some alarming research findings about air pollution. The Royal College of Physicians and The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health reported that air pollution was contributing to more than 40,000 deaths each year in the UK. The issue continues to dominate the headlines in 2017, which has already seen the release of research from Lancaster, Oxford and Manchester Universities making a link between traffic pollution and Alzheimer’s disease. They found that the risk of dementia increases the closer you live to a major arterial road.
L
In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan has already been forced to issue several air quality alerts as the capital breached its World Health Organisation (WHO) clean air targets for the entire year within the first week of January – for the second year running – and the government has recently been forced by campaigning lawyers to publish new plans for tackling toxic emissions from diesel vehicles. This is a huge societal problem and not something our industry can solve on its own, but that doesn’t mean we can turn our backs on it either. In fact, it is clear that clients increasingly expect our sector to be able to measure its performance in terms of human health and well-being.
Reliability
In the past, we were judged on system reliability and then, energy efficiency became our performance benchmark. However, a World Green Building Council (WGBC) study of business costs suggests we need to take a fresh look at how we evaluate success. The study calculated that energy efficiency was only responsible for an average saving of around £6 per sq m per year to building owners – water efficiency contributes a measly £1. However, if a building performs well, it can contribute to staff retention, which is worth close to £18 per sq m, and reducing sickness [through improved air quality among other factors] would save an employer £26. The big business
28 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER JULY 2017
winner, though, is productivity. If the working environment leads to a modest 5% improvement, that could be worth a whopping £307 per sq m, according to the WGBC’s research.
The commercial/productivity drivers are clearly changing the way building owners and, specifically, employers view their built assets. The impact of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) on occupant health, well- being and productivity is now better understood, and the importance of protecting people from the impact of pollutants – generated both inside and outside of the building – is pressing. This is partly a social responsibility issue, but equally the legal implications of allowing employees to become sick are obvious. Biological pollutants can cause coughing, sneezing, dizziness, shortness of breath and even fevers; while excess chemicals in the air can lead to serious respiratory problems and lung disease. They also exacerbate existing heart conditions and are particularly harmful to children, the elderly and infirm. Air quality expert Gary Fuller, senior lecturer at King’s College London, believes increasing concentrations of NOx – nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) – in particular demonstrates “an utter failure of policy” in terms of the government’s response to pollution.
NOx is a product of combustion taking place when nitrogen is present and so is emitted by vehicle engines and also by heating equipment, which makes this both a specific and general problem for building services engineers. The World Health Organisation also says there is no safe limit for this type of airborne particulate that is small enough to make its way into the deepest recesses of the human lungs – and has been linked with several types of cancer.
The rise in the amount of wood burning – in stoves and biomass boilers – has also dramatically increased the amount of larger particulates (PM10) in the air that contribute to smog.
Dejan Mumovic of University College London (UCL) says this build-up of poor air quality is harming the ability of children to learn in schools. Experiments have also shown a link between exposure to NOx and asthma attacks, he says, with serious long-term
quality of life implications and rising healthcare costs.
All of these factors are creating increased interest in standards that take all aspects of building performance into account. The WELL Building Standard, which was first developed in California and is now being adopted worldwide, assesses a building’s impact on: Mind; Comfort; Fitness; Light; Nourishment; Water; and Air. It is now being incorporated into our own BREEAM assessment.
Concentration
To achieve a favourable WELL building score, a building or facilities manager must be able to manage the risk from NOx while reducing the concentration of CO2 in a space to 800ppm and keeping ozone, radon gas and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at safe levels. We can all contribute to this effort and, while the focus will not switch totally away from energy efficiency, there will be a greater expectation on building services engineers to take air quality into account and ensure that, at the very least, we are not making the problem worse.
Just as we chipped away at the energy consumption problem, so we can each take small steps to tackle this one. In the case of Lochinvar, for example, we have worked hard to gradually reduce the amount of potentially harmful emissions from our products. We have launched several new water heater and boiler products in recent years, and all have low NOx emissions. For example, our new Herald condensing boiler range has very low NOx emissions of 39mg/kWh, which means each product qualifies for the maximum three BREAAM points available for air quality.
This might seem small beer when put up against the sheer enormity of our country’s air pollution challenges, but every little helps. If we all focus on the problem, we can aggregate a series of small improvements into a complete building design approach that, if widely adopted, would then make a world of difference to occupant health, well-being and productivity.
www.lochinvar.ltd.uk VISIT OUR WEBSITE:
www.bsee.co.uk
uTop: London Mayor Sadiq Khan has already issued several air quality alerts as the capital breached its World Health Organisation (WHO) clean air targets for the entire year within the first week of January – for the second year running.
‘
The impact of Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) on occupant health, well‐being and productivity is now better understood, and the importance of protecting people from the impact of pollutants – generated both inside and outside of the building – is pressing.
’
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164 |
Page 165 |
Page 166 |
Page 167 |
Page 168 |
Page 169 |
Page 170 |
Page 171 |
Page 172 |
Page 173 |
Page 174 |
Page 175 |
Page 176 |
Page 177 |
Page 178 |
Page 179 |
Page 180 |
Page 181 |
Page 182 |
Page 183 |
Page 184 |
Page 185 |
Page 186 |
Page 187 |
Page 188 |
Page 189 |
Page 190 |
Page 191 |
Page 192 |
Page 193 |
Page 194 |
Page 195 |
Page 196 |
Page 197 |
Page 198 |
Page 199 |
Page 200 |
Page 201 |
Page 202 |
Page 203 |
Page 204 |
Page 205 |
Page 206 |
Page 207 |
Page 208 |
Page 209 |
Page 210 |
Page 211 |
Page 212 |
Page 213 |
Page 214 |
Page 215 |
Page 216 |
Page 217 |
Page 218 |
Page 219 |
Page 220 |
Page 221 |
Page 222 |
Page 223 |
Page 224 |
Page 225 |
Page 226 |
Page 227 |
Page 228 |
Page 229 |
Page 230 |
Page 231 |
Page 232 |
Page 233 |
Page 234 |
Page 235 |
Page 236 |
Page 237 |
Page 238 |
Page 239 |
Page 240 |
Page 241 |
Page 242 |
Page 243 |
Page 244 |
Page 245 |
Page 246 |
Page 247 |
Page 248 |
Page 249 |
Page 250 |
Page 251 |
Page 252 |
Page 253 |
Page 254 |
Page 255 |
Page 256 |
Page 257 |
Page 258 |
Page 259 |
Page 260 |
Page 261 |
Page 262 |
Page 263 |
Page 264 |
Page 265 |
Page 266 |
Page 267 |
Page 268 |
Page 269 |
Page 270 |
Page 271 |
Page 272 |
Page 273 |
Page 274 |
Page 275 |
Page 276 |
Page 277 |
Page 278 |
Page 279 |
Page 280 |
Page 281 |
Page 282 |
Page 283 |
Page 284 |
Page 285 |
Page 286 |
Page 287 |
Page 288 |
Page 289 |
Page 290 |
Page 291 |
Page 292 |
Page 293 |
Page 294 |
Page 295 |
Page 296 |
Page 297 |
Page 298 |
Page 299 |
Page 300 |
Page 301 |
Page 302 |
Page 303 |
Page 304 |
Page 305 |
Page 306 |
Page 307 |
Page 308 |
Page 309 |
Page 310 |
Page 311 |
Page 312 |
Page 313 |
Page 314 |
Page 315 |
Page 316 |
Page 317 |
Page 318 |
Page 319 |
Page 320 |
Page 321 |
Page 322 |
Page 323 |
Page 324 |
Page 325 |
Page 326 |
Page 327 |
Page 328 |
Page 329 |
Page 330 |
Page 331 |
Page 332 |
Page 333 |
Page 334 |
Page 335 |
Page 336 |
Page 337 |
Page 338 |
Page 339 |
Page 340 |
Page 341 |
Page 342 |
Page 343 |
Page 344 |
Page 345 |
Page 346 |
Page 347 |
Page 348 |
Page 349 |
Page 350 |
Page 351 |
Page 352 |
Page 353 |
Page 354 |
Page 355 |
Page 356 |
Page 357 |
Page 358 |
Page 359 |
Page 360 |
Page 361 |
Page 362 |
Page 363 |
Page 364 |
Page 365 |
Page 366 |
Page 367 |
Page 368 |
Page 369 |
Page 370 |
Page 371 |
Page 372 |
Page 373 |
Page 374 |
Page 375 |
Page 376