Indoor Air Quality Standards: Best Practices for Sustainable Building Design

Indoor air quality is one of the seven sustainable design principles. Prioritizing it matters because pollutant levels can rise in airtight properties. Green building certifications set minimum indoor air quality standards. Sustainable structures improve occupants’ well-being and comfort while neutralizing the unwanted consequences of energy efficiency. Follow these six best practices for indoor air quality.

1. Reduce the Prevalence of VOCs

VOCs are some of the most common indoor air pollutants. Building materials can emit them for years, exposing people to harmful chemicals that can cause liver damage, cancer and other adverse health problems in the long term.

Fortunately, more architectural coatings contain zero or low levels of VOCs. Zero and low-VOC paints have no more than 5 and 50 grams per liter of VOC, respectively. Products bearing the Green Seal logo can be as durable as traditional paints.

Eco-friendly paints use pigments from naturally occurring minerals and plants. Refrain from adding colorants to avoid inadvertently increasing their VOC content.

While zero and low-VOC architectural coatings may still contain other toxic substances, these products should help you meet rigorous healthy building standards.

2. Maintain Mechanical Ventilation Equipment

Proper mechanical ventilation system upkeep is one of the tried-and-true strategies for maintaining healthy indoor air quality in buildings. The HVAC crew must use ASHRAE 62.1-2016 as a guide to achieve the ideal outdoor air rate based on property type and occupant density.

Compliance with the above standard is paramount for building occupant health and safety. It’s also a prerequisite for green building certifications under LEED rating v4.1 — a sought-after credential by existing properties.

3. Intercept Outdoor Pollutants

Outdoor air is generally cleaner than indoor air. However, air pollution can be terrible in urban areas. Drawing outdoor air with particulate matter and nitrogen oxides to ventilate the building can do more harm to the occupants than good.

Purifying the immediate outdoor air is one of the most effective techniques for enhancing indoor air quality in green buildings. It decreases the concentrations of common indoor air pollutants and lessens their impact on the health of building occupants.

Planting native vegetation around the property elegantly mitigates particulate pollution. Trees filter out particulates from the air, temporarily holding them until the rain dissolves or sends them to the ground. Plants breathe in various gaseous pollutants along with carbon dioxide and clean the air surrounding the building.

Greenery alleviates the urban heat island effect. Vegetation helps cool the adjacent environment, helping slow the chemical reactions that form ground-level smog.

Buildings in urban centers with limited landscape area can benefit from vertical greenery systems. A cluster of vegetation-covered properties is less subject to intense air pollution.

4. Use High-Efficiency Filters

HEPA filters are in the heart of commercial air purifiers. Theoretically, they can capture at least 99.97% of airborne pollutants with a size of 0.3 microns, including bacteria, dust, mold and pollen. 

If VOCs, secondhand smoke, wood smoke and unpleasant odors are more of a concern, carbon filtration is more suitable. Carbon filters sequester these elusive contaminants, helping stop them from causing environmental pollution that can affect climate change and human health.

5. Incorporate Indoor Plants Into Building Design

Live plants are staples of biophilic design. They bring the benefits of outdoor vegetation indoors, acting as natural air purifiers for interior spaces.

Indoor greenery is as beneficial to mental health as to physical health. Shades of green evoke serenity, imbuing calmness. Biophilic elements also boost creativity and productivity, maximizing the cognitive resources of occupants to finish tasks more quickly.

6. Monitor Indoor Air Quality

Nobody could overstate the role of air quality monitoring in sustainable building design. You can only manage what you can measure and only measure what you can monitor.

Adopting indoor air quality monitoring systems is crucial. They track and record pollutant concentrations in occupied spaces in real time, alerting you when indoor air quality dips to unhealthy levels. Timely notifications enable decision-makers to increase ventilation as needed.

Constantly assessing the indoor air quality is important in sustainable design, as it aids in proactive building maintenance. Chronically poor indoor quality levels may indicate undiscovered air gaps, underperforming HVAC units and ineffective policies.

Responding to suspiciously chronic indoor air quality cases may help combat the sick building syndrome and protect you from liability.

An example worth emulating is the USGBC. The LEED developer’s headquarters uses specialized monitors for indoor air quality assessment, collecting data on carbon dioxide, VOCs, particulate matter, temperature, relative humidity and other factors. 

Raise Your Standards for Indoor Air Quality

Indoor air quality standards are higher than ever. Environmentally and socially conscious regulators and property owners keep raising the bar. Embrace best practices for improving indoor air quality in construction and building maintenance to adapt to the times.