Commercial real estate is responsible for 27% of the world’s CO2 emissions, and HVAC systems in those properties account for 35% to 40% of their total energy consumption.

It’s clear, then, that increasing the efficiency of your HVAC system can both reduce your facility’s energy consumption as well as shrink your carbon footprint, helping you meet your ESG goals and other sustainability targets,

Critical to optimizing the performance of HVAC and air filtration systems, both increasing their effectiveness and decreasing their energy consumption, is the continuous monitoring and analysis of indoor air quality and the implementation of feedback mechanisms based on that analysis. This is so important that it is a critical element of the US Green Building Council’s (USGBC’s) LEED standards for green buildings.

TelosAir’s continuous indoor air quality monitoring and analysis can help you operate your facility’s HVAC systems far more efficiently and effectively, helping you:

• Increase energy savings
• Optimize air exchange rates
• Monitor and adjust air filtration
• Manage your decarbonization levels
• Meet ESG goals
• Prepare for future governmental and regulatory sustainability recommendations

It’s been estimated in multiple studies by the EPA that we spend over 90 percent of our time indoors, where the concentrations of some pollutants are 2 to 5 times higher than outdoors. In fact, the EPA has identified indoor air quality (IAQ) as one of the top five most urgent environmental risks to public health. Poor indoor air quality can lead to:

• Headaches, nausea, dizziness, drowsiness, irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, and poor concentration, among other ill effects
• Loss of focus, low productivity, and poor business outcomes
• Lack of infection control which can lead to exacerbation of pre-existing medical conditions, such as asthma or heart disease, or the onset of new illnesses through exposure to pathogens (such as SARS-CoV-2, the influenza virus, or the common rhinovirus)

Some indoor spaces, such as hospitals or manufacturing facilities, may have even higher concentrations of dangerous pathogens, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, or other pollutants which may pose additional, special risks to the health and safety of workers.

Indoor air quality is so important to health and safety in the built environment that it is one of the seven critical components of the international WELL building standard, a performance-based system for measuring, monitoring, and certifying features of buildings that impact human health and well-being (legacy.wellcertified.com).

The bottom line: your IAQ is complex, ever-changing, and largely invisible – continually monitoring and analyzing indoor air quality is therefore a critical first step to improving the health and safety of every indoor environment.

TelosAir’s advanced analytics will provide visibility into your IAQ and guide you in diagnosing what’s in your indoor air, and using those insights to set optimal air exchanges, timely filter replacements, humidity and temperature levels, or adopt additional air purification technologies specifically to create better health and safety outcomes.

While OSHA does not mandate adherence to IAQ regulations for commercial and institutional spaces, it does provide detailed guidelines and recommendations to help prevent or minimize IAQ problems for these spaces. These practical recommendations (osha.gov) address common sources of IAQ issues, such as:

• Improperly operated or maintained HVAC systems
• Moisture/dampness
• Radon
• Outdoor pollutants
• Indoor pollutants (from the use of cleaning and disinfecting supplies, out-gassing, the use of manufacturing equipment, and so on)

ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers) also publishes a set of comprehensive indoor air quality standards and guidelines, with more than 500 pages of documentation covering 40 strategies for meeting 8 critical IAQ objectives (ashrae.org).

Complying with all applicable standards, guidelines, laws, rules, and regulations from ISO, CDC, EPA, and others, can be complex and time-consuming – but it is critical to providing a safe work environment and to reducing the risk to workers, their families, your facilities, and your everyday business processes. Bad IAQ can shut down a facility in a heartbeat, causing interruptions in business or services, disruption to the community, poor community relations, lost wages, bad press – and worse.

TelosAir’s comprehensive solutions take the burden off you and help you improve your compliance posture and risk profile, making sure that you are compliant with all applicable guidelines and mandates for healthy and safe IAQ, and that you are managing the substantial risks of poor IAQ effectively and efficiently.