The Brown Pandemic Center helped organize the Stanford Forum on Sustainable and Healthy Buildings, hosted by Stanford University and Queensland University of Technology. The forum aimed to focus discussion and action on healthy buildings and clean indoor air.
The two-day forum brought together experts in building design, building certification, air monitoring, science, and government to integrate indoor air quality and energy efficiency. The forum discussed the challenges of creating a market for healthy buildings and driving demand and public awareness for clean indoor air.
A recently published paper in Science proposed mandating indoor air quality performance standards—measurable targets for air pollutants and ventilation. The lead author of the paper, Professor Lidia Morawska, helped organize the forum, facilitating a discussion of how to adopt these standards in commercial and public buildings. The goal is to have clean indoor air in buildings at all times, with continuous monitoring—just like buildings continuously maintain temperature. The group identified three priority areas for action:
- Develop industry-led indoor air quality performance standards.
- Identify leaders in industry and local government to pilot the adoption of indoor air quality performance standards.
- Integrate indoor air quality monitoring into green and healthy building certifications.
Dr. Lidia Morawska, a global leader on air quality and airborne disease transmission, transformed the scientific community’s understanding of the importance of clean indoor air. She said, “When it comes to new buildings, we often ask if the air quality inside them is good. And building designers tell us it is. But in what sense is it good, and how do we know? We don’t have performance standards for buildings, which means we don’t monitor air quality indoors to know if our indoor air is healthy.”
Dr. Georgia Lagoudas, a Senior Fellow who leads the clean indoor air initiative at the Brown Pandemic Center, said, “With major building design firms, leaders from building certification programs, and state public health leaders in the room, we finally could talk about the practical implementation of health-based indoor air quality standards. Private sector and public sector leaders are eager to partner to make cleaner indoor air a reality, and it was great to bridge the divide between the scientific community and practitioners.”
Dr. Milana Trounce, Director of the BioSecurity and Pandemic Resilience program at Stanford, strongly believes this work is important across multiple domains: “Amidst the escalating risks of pandemics and climate-related disasters like wildfires, the need for buildings that promote human health and environmental sustainability is more evident than ever. Scientific evidence highlights the crucial role of clean indoor air in bolstering resilience to such challenges and improving overall human well-being.”
Dr. Lagoudas and Sabrina Chwalek participated from the Pandemic Center and will be involved in coordinating next steps. The forum is part of the Pandemic Center’s work to advance clean indoor air in schools, nursing homes, workplaces, and public buildings.