IEQ/ IAQ - Why, Where, and What to Monitor for Healthier Office Building Environments

What’s IEQ/ IAQ and Why it’s Important to Monitor Them

We’ve all been there. Certain living and working spaces leave us feeling energised, refreshed, relaxed, and productive, while others seem to drain our energy, making us feel exhausted or even sick. A host of factors contribute to these feelings, including biological, psychological, and social/work-related elements. However, the physical environment's attributes play a significant role in determining our overall health, happiness, and general well-being.

Globally respected standards and certification programs like the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) 's WELL Building Standard, NABERS Indoor Environment Ratings, Fitwel Certification System , U.S. Green Building Council 's LEED standard, and BRE 's BREEAM certification have led the way in creating awareness and ensuring optimum Indoor Environmental Quality standards within buildings.

The elements within a physical environment affecting our mood, health, and sense of 'wellness' can be categorised into fixed factors and variable factors. ‘Fixed factors’, like the building material, space dimensions, interior design, and décor, cannot be easily or frequently changed. In contrast, ‘variable factors’, such as air constituents (e.g., CO2 levels, CO levels, formaldehyde, Volatile Organic Compounds - VOCs, particulate matter - PM), thermal conditions, lighting levels, and noise levels, change frequently.

These overall indoor environmental factors are collectively referred to as Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), while those specific to air quality are known as Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). IAQ is a subset of IEQ. Thanks to advancements in environmental sensing technologies and IoT, it is now possible to measure many of these variable IEQ/ IAQ attributes using compact, accurate sensors that are easy to install and integrate.

Where and What to Monitor

In this article, we’ll explore the types of spaces within a typical office building or portfolio, where IEQ attributes can and should be monitored, and what attributes can be monitored in each of them using IEQ/ IAQ sensors.

1. Meeting Rooms: Because these are usually concentrated spaces frequently occupied by people, attributes such as temperature and CO2 levels frequently vary, and humidity levels as a result of temperature fluctuations. What to monitor: CO2, Temperature, Humidity
2. Seating Areas/ Open Office Spaces: Depending on outdoor factors like weather, noise sources, window availability/ position, time of the day, and internal factors like occupancy and airflow the indoor environment continuously changes throughout the day. What to monitor: CO2, Temperature, Humidity, VOC, PM, Formaldehyde
3. Green Spaces: Indoor plants reduce CO2 but can increase humidity and mould with overwatering. What to monitor: Humidity, Mould
4. Cafeterias and Kitchens: Known for their distinct aromas, humidity, and fluctuating temperature levels due to cooking. What to monitor: Odors, Humidity, Temperature
5. Gyms and Workout Spaces: Intense workouts can spike CO2 and humidity levels.  What to monitor: CO2, Humidity
6. Server Rooms: Emitting VOCs and generating heat, these tech hubs need careful monitoring. What to monitor: VOCs, Temperature, Humidity
7. Car Parks: Vehicle exhausts can elevate CO levels, which is a dangerous gas that has no odour, colour, or taste but potential for major health impact. What to monitor: CO, Temperature, Humidity
8. Toilets: These important spaces can be kept fresh and clean by monitoring the right attributes and taking the appropriate actions. What to monitor: Odour/ Ammonia, Humidity, Temperature

How to Gain a Holistic View of IEQ/ IAQ in All Spaces Within a Building or Portfolio

There’s a vast versatility of IEQ/ IAQ sensors in the market today. Lower-cost options that only measure a few IEQ parameters, higher-cost options that cover a wider range of IEQ attributes, and specialised sensors for sensing hard-to-detect attributes. Also, thanks to continuous innovation in the IoT and sensor tech space, new products or models are continuously added to the market. Therefore it’s inevitable for one building to have multiple product brands and models across the various spaces we discussed above. This gets even more complex in the case of a building/ office portfolio across cities and sometimes countries, where it’s practically impossible to stick to one product brand. On the other hand, it’s very important for building and portfolio managers to have a holistic view of IEQ/ IAQ aspects of all key spaces across all their buildings, for continuous monitoring, actions, benchmarking, and ESG reporting.

This is where the power of system integration and the concept of composability comes to the rescue. Thanks to innovative approaches to horizontally integrating various vertical products to drive product-agnostic automations and enable unified analytics, such as that of Spaceworx, operators of all types of spaces can centrally monitor IEQ attributes of their spaces, coming from heterogenous sensor products, and perform necessary actions that are covered below.

What Actions Should You/ Can You Do with the Data?

Once you access to the right data, you can do wonders. These are some important things you can do with the data you gather from IEQ and IAQ sensors installed in the areas we discussed above.

Stats and analytics

1. Centrally monitor how key IEQ and IAQ attributes vary from one type of space to another (e.g. how kitchen area IEQ levels compare with open office spaces), also compare how similar types of spaces compare with one another (e.g. how building A room 1 IEQ levels compare with building rooms 2, 3, 4; how that compares with building B rooms, etc.) and, identify patterns, anomalies, and exceptions.
2. Correlate IEQ data with other key data sets like occupancy, space booking, energy consumption, etc. and have a holistic picture of how your internal spaces perform, make informed decisions, and take appropriate actions. (Read this post for more details and inspiration).
3. Share consolidated, non-sensitive IEQ data with staff and the public, for their information and benefit, via digital signage and staff portals/ mobile apps/ intranets.
4. Securely share IEQ data with other tenants in your building/ portfolio, for benchmarking and comparison purposes

Manual actions

1. Identify poorly ventilated spaces to make necessary adjustments in the HVAC system
2. Install air purification systems for areas that need attention, e.g. covered car parks
3. Make adjustments to toilet cleaning schedules based on patterns identified
4. Perform necessary changes in the physical environment and routines to minimise the noise in highly occupied areas (e.g. soundproofing windows, repartitioning spaces, moving noisy meeting rooms to less occupied areas, etc.)

Automations

1. Use IEQ data to automatically control the airflow/ HVAC system and air purification solutions
2. Use natural light lux level detection to auto-adjust brightness levels in the lighting system
3. Automatically notify cleaning staff when toilets require cleaning beyond the routine cleaning schedule
4. Automatically create Work Orders in the CAFM/ CMMS system to assign service providers to attend to above areas

Important Links

• WELL Building Standard https://standard.wellcertified.com/sites/default/files/The%20WELL%20Building%20Standard%20v1%20with%20May%202016%20addenda.pdf 
• NABERS Indoor Environment Ratings - https://www.nabers.gov.au/publications/nabers-indoor-environment-offices-rules
• LEED - Indoor Air Quality - https://www.usgbc.org/articles/leed-and-indoor-air-quality-existing-buildings
• Fitwel Standard - https://www.fitwel.org/fitwel-solutions
• RESET Air Standard - https://www.reset.build/standard/air 
• BREEAM Health and Wellbeing -https://files.bregroup.com/breeam/technicalmanuals/BREEAMUK2014SchemeDocument/content/05_health/health.htm 
• Spaceworx - IEQ Bundles with Product Agnostic IEQ Analytics and compatible products - https://marketplace.spaceworx.com/home/bundle-solutions?countries=SG&categories=Indoor+Air+%2F+Environmental+Quality 
• My previous article on Composable Smart Buildings - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/smart-buildings-future-composable-your-building-ready-weerasekera%3FtrackingId=ytOcDHzvT8%252BBT5iCBxQJRQ%253D%253D/?trackingId=ytOcDHzvT8%2BBT5iCBxQJRQ%3D%3D

#wellness #wellbeing #indoorairquality #iaq #ieq #iot #facilitymanagement #facilitiesmanagement #workplacetechnology #smartbuildings #commercialrealestate #corporaterealestate

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👋 With a decade-long commitment to driving digital transformation in the Real Estate & Construction industry, I’ve had the privilege of being part of an exciting community. By sharing experiences, stories, valuable tips, and solution options, I aim to give back to this amazing community - one use case at a time.

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