Although I said that I would cover two trips in this post, it is long enough that I will address only the IAQ 2013 conference here and write about my visit to the UK separately. Because of the emphasis on indoor environmental quality in my Society theme for 2013-14, I looked forward to the ASHRAE IAQ 2013: Environmental Health in Low-Energy Buildings conference held October 15-18 in Vancouver, Canada with great anticipation. The conference was co-sponsored by the International Society for Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ), so this event also embodied the element of collaboration in the theme. Although smaller in size than its predecessor in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, IAQ 2013 attracted at diverse international participation that included many distinguished figures in the contemporary IAQ field. Both ASHRAE and ISIAQ were represented by their presidents - myself and Pawel Wargocki of Danish Technical University, respectively. The conference was co-chaired by Hal Levin and Steve Emmerich. The location and conference venue were excellent. The only negative to the conference was the US government shutdown, which prevented several federal employees from participating, including co-chair Emmerich. All involved in the planning and execution of the meeting are to be commended for their excellent work. The stated purpose of the conference was to review “the state of knowledge on the balance between environmental health and energy efficiency in the pursuit of low energy buildings.” The program included provocative plenary addresses intended to frame the major themes of the conference. I lead off with “Are we putting enough energy into making buildings healthy?” at the conference opening and there followed on each successive day, “Do we know much about low-energy buildings and health?” by Mark Mendell of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, “Building energy and reactivity” by Rich Corsi of the University of Texas, and “What can Europe teach us?” by Pawel Wargocki. Technical paper sessions covered a wide range of relevant topics, including air cleaning and filtration, environmental health in low energy buildings, microorganisms and health, moisture and health, to name a few. My plenary address pointed out that when the first IAQ conference was held in 1986, both energy conservation and IAQ had been identified as key priorities, but that there has been much more progress in the ensuing years in conservation than in improvement of the indoor environment…and explored the reasons why. There was much discussion around this theme throughout the conference and I think there was some agreement on the current status of IAQ and what needs to be done. In preparing this talk, it was an interesting exercise to put myself in the shoes of my father, who was president in 1986 and delivered the opening remarks there. Pawel Wargocki’s plenary on the last day of the conference included his personal summary of these discussions with some key points being: 1) that we need to make better use of available research to inform practice and proceed conservatively on the basis of incomplete evidence when necessary, 2) there is a need to define and explore the specific aspects of low energy buildings, and 3) make sure that recommendations are properly implemented in practice. While these conclusions suggest a somewhat discouraging state of affairs after nearly three decades of effort, I take some encouragement from the fact that we may be developing the resolve to take a fresh approach to IAQ in practice that will bring us closer to realizing the potential of what buildings can be. Other notable events at IAQ 2013 included 1) the signing of an MOU between ASHRAE and IAQA that has been described in a recent ASHRAE press release https://ashrae.org/news/2013/ashrae-iaqa-sign-memorandum-of-understanding and 2) the first organizational meeting of a presidential ad hoc committee chaired by VP Bjarne Olesen whose purpose is to establish an “Indoor Environmental Quality International Alliance” comprising major organizations concerned with IAQ, comfort, and other aspects of IEQ to work together to advance the cause of environmental quality in buildings.
Posted on: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 08:31:29 +0000
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