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Indoor Environmental Quality - Standards for Protection of Occupants’

Safety, Health and Environment

Article  in  Indoor and Built Environment · October 2010

DOI: 10.1177/1420326X10381106

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 Editorial
Indoor and Built
Environment Indoor Built Environ 2010;19;5:499–502
Indoor Environmental
Quality – Standards for
Protection of Occupants’
Safety, Health and
Environment
Chuck Yua Derrick Crumpb
a
International Society of the Built Environment (ISBE), UK
b
Institute of Environment and Health (IEH), Cranfield University
Bedfordshire, MK43 0AL, UK
Buildings represent a major investment, not just at the
design and construction stage, but throughout their service
lives because of on-going operational and maintenance.
Increasingly owners and occupiers are becoming aware of
the importance to maintain an adequate built environ-
mental quality that is attractive and acceptable for the
intended occupants. Achieving occupant comfort, includ-
ing consideration of ventilation, thermal and glare and
prevention of adverse health risks can have consequent
benefits for occupant productivity and satisfaction, which
could maximise the letting/selling potential of the property.
Creating and maintaining a comfortable, healthy,
efficient and cost-effective indoor environment is a
complex task that involves understanding the capabilities
and interactions of a range of systems, technologies and
building materials as well as occupant requirements. There
is a need to form an overall strategy for building design
and management to incorporate occupant needs within the
concept of ‘sustainable development’.
Indoor air scientists have long argued that control of
emissions from the building materials and consumer
products used in buildings should be an important part
of policies and actions to protect public health from the
adverse effects of indoor air pollution [1–4]. The response
from product manufacturers and regulators in the past can
ß SAGE Publications 2010
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore
DOI: 10.1177/1420326X10381106
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be described as variable and on the whole disappointing.
In Europe for example a few countries and some
producers have made important steps whereas others
have yet to effectively address indoor air quality (IAQ).
The issue is now rising up the agenda particularly because
of concerns that changes to building design to adapt to the
expected effects of climate change could have an adverse
impact on IAQ [5,6]. However, there is a continuing need
to raise awareness of the issue; for example the UK
government’s Code for Sustainable Homes has a section
on ‘health and well being’ of occupants without mention
of IAQ. Increasingly, buildings are required to be highly
air-tight and insulated to meet the ‘‘zero-carbon’’ objec-
tives of governments and this has implications for indoor
environmental quality [7].
To minimise the occupants’ exposure risks to indoor
pollutants and to enhance environmental quality of
buildings, there is a need to consider guidelines [8] and
standards for buildings including criteria for ventilation,
materials emissions and IAQ criteria for indoor air
pollutants such as total VOCs (TVOC), benzene, for-
maldehyde, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, micro-
particulates and polyaromatics [9], as well as microbial
contaminants, for example toxic moulds [10]. The scien-
tific literature contains many reports of IAQ problems
arising from the use of particular products that release
chemicals causing odour and irritation or resulting in an
Chuck Yu,
29 The Nortons, Caldecotte, Milton Keynes MK7 8HQ, UK
Tel. þ44 (0)1908 370887, E-Mail chuck.yu@isbeltd.com
exposure with an associated increased risk to health
[2,4,11,12]. Examples include combustion products from
tobacco smoke, incense, candles; application of paints and
adhesives with high solvent content; damp proofing prod-
ucts that release naphthalene and other polyaromatic
compounds, wood based products releasing formaldehyde
[4]; insulating foams producing irritant dust and polymeric
materials containing phthalates. As well as these situations
leading to occupant complaint, national surveys of indoor
air quality have demonstrated that a wide range of
chemicals are present in air and dust at considerably
higher concentrations indoors than outside [13]. This
combined with us spending the vast majority of our time,
over 90%, in indoor environments means that our exposure
to a wide range of pollutants in air and dust is dominated by
emissions occurring indoors, particularly in our homes. If
we make our existing building stock as well as new build,
more airtight and reduce average rates of ventilation then
we can expect an increase in concentrations of these indoor
pollutants unless their sources are reduced.
The control of emissions from products is a key aspect
of the European Environment and Health Action Plan.
Controls of emissions from products to the indoor
environment can be expected to have a number of benefits
including:
. Prevent the highest emitting products being placed on
the market and thereby reduce the risk of IAQ
problems.
. Enable regulators and designers to set standards for
ventilation provision that are optimised for removal of
pollutants generated by people themselves, for example
body odours and for the control of humidity.
. Reduce the exposure (inhalation, ingestion and dermal)
of people to chemical pollutants occurring in indoor air
and dust and on interior surfaces.
. Provide consumers with information about emissions
that allow informed selection of products. This is of
particular benefit for those in the population sensitive
to particular chemicals and those wishing to minimise
their exposure.
. Reduce the risk of exposure arising from misuse of
products such as painting in poorly ventilated con-
ditions or through not using ventilation devices
provided. Examples of inappropriate use of ventilation
devices are closure of trickle ventilators (often through
ignorance of their purpose) that are designed to provide
background ventilation and the switching off of
mechanical ventilation, perhaps because of noise or
the wish to save energy costs.
500 Indoor Built Environ 2010;19:499–502
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In Europe there have been three main types of actions
aimed at controlling emissions to the indoor air:
. Europe wide (research, networks and expert groups,
standardisation initiatives, Construction Products
Directive, REACH, Biocides Directive)
. Member states (mandatory labelling schemes, IAQ
research and regulation)
. Voluntary labelling schemes.
An example of a network project is that of HealthyAir
[1] and one of its activities was to engage with a wide range
of stakeholders concerned with the built environment to
assess their understanding of IAQ issues and their
information needs with regard to the potential for benefits
of control of emissions. One outcome was a series of
briefing papers for manufacturers, building professionals
and the general public (www.healthy-air.org).
The existing mandatory requirements in Germany for
emissions to indoor air from some construction products
and the recent notification by France of proposed
mandatory requirements for all construction products
(with intention to extend to consumer products) has
highlighted the need for harmonisation to minimise the
burden upon industry for approval testing under a range
of regulatory and voluntary systems of emission
control such as the German AgBB scheme (http://
www.umweltbundesamt.de/building-products/archive/AgBB-
Evaluation-Scheme2010.pdf). The European standards
organisation (CEN) is working with national standardisa-
tion bodies to develop horizontal standards under the
Construction Products Directive (CPD) (1989) aimed at
removing barriers to trade in construction products. The
second generation of harmonised product standards under
the CPD requires harmonised test methods for determin-
ing release or emission of dangerous substances to satisfy
the requirements of Essential Requirement 3 of the CPD:
Hygiene, health and the environment.
The information about emissions produced by applying
the harmonised standard is intended to be used for CE
marking of construction products and attestation of
conformity. The responsibility of product specification is
with the technical committees responsible for standardisa-
tion of the various product types (the ‘product TCs’).
A draft standard has been prepared and is to be the subject
of a robustness validation programme and amended as
required before national standardisation bodies are
balloted on acceptance.
The market leading multi-product schemes for labelling
construction products based on the amount of emission of
Yu and Crump
VOCs into indoor air are the M1 scheme (Finland), the
Danish Indoor Climate Label, the French AFSSET and
the German AgBB. Representatives of these schemes and
other experts have been working with the support of JRC
(Joint Research Centre), Ispra to define a framework for
the harmonisation of the labelling schemes. This initiative
is welcomed by many in industry because of the potential
benefits of reduced testing requirements and associated
costs for those producers wishing to promote low emitting
products. It is also supported by DG SANCO and the
European Expert Group on Indoor Air Quality and is
consistent with an objective of the European
Environmental Health Action Plan.
The first phase of the group’s work has been completed
and a report agreed for publication (No. 27 in the ECA
series Urban Air, Indoor Environment and Human
Exposure). This will form the basis for a planned second
phase of work involving a broader group of stakeholders.
The framework incorporates the use of standards for test
methods currently under revision or in preparation in the
International Standards Organisation (ISO) and CEN,
including those in preparation in support of implementa-
tion of the CPD ER3. It recognises the importance of
evaluating individual VOCs as well as the total concentra-
tion (TVOC) determined by an environmental chamber
test procedure.
There is now a steady progress being made towards
agreed systems of testing and evaluating products based
on their potential for emissions to indoor air. The future
roles of regulatory and voluntary schemes remains unclear
but frameworks for international action to control
emissions from products are being formulated to pave
the way for their more widespread adoption to assist with
the provision of healthy indoor environments. The three-
pronged approach of providing standards for IAQ,
ventilation and materials emissions has also been adopted
outside Europe, for example ASHRAE 62-2001:
Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality; the
Chinese National Standard GB 50325-2001: Indoor Air
Quality for Application in Buildings; the Guidance Note
for the management of IAQ in offices and public places in
Hong Kong (www.iaq.gov.hk/cert/doc/GN-eng.pdf); and
IAQ Control Act of Korea (http://english.kosha.or.kr/
main). The regulation of IAQ is also very much a part of
the Japanese Law for Maintenance of Sanitation in
Buildings [14].
One group of compounds not adequately addressed
by the existing labelling schemes and the proposed
harmonised test method under the CPD are the semi-
volatile organic compounds (SVOCs). Examples include
Editorial
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plasticisers (e.g. phthalates) and fire retardants (e.g.
brominated organic compounds and organophosphate
esters). These compounds have a lower vapour pressure
than VOCs and have a much longer residence time in the
indoor environments of buildings. Because these com-
pounds are widely used in a wide variety of products used
in household and materials, they are omnipresent in
virtually all kinds of built environments in every country.
Some of these compounds have potential to cause health
effects as a result of dermal contact and ingestion via
sorption on food and dust. Increasingly, products
standards will need to include emission criteria for these
compounds.
Further research is needed to characterise the emissions
of these types of SVOCs to allow evaluation of their
behaviour and to predict concentrations in indoor
environments by modelling. Unlike the studies of VOCs
involving diffusion and mass transfer; partitioning into the
gas phase and sorption onto interior surfaces and dusts are
important considerations for the assessment of SVOC
concentrations in buildings. Also because of the properties
of SVOCs (e.g. some higher phthalates), different kinds of
emission testing, sampling and analytical procedures are
required. The International Standards Organisation has an
active programme of work in this area and these methods
will need to be validated for use in regulation or voluntary
labelling.
I, your editor, was honoured to be invited, as an
international scientific committee member, to participate
in the 1st International Workshop on SVOC in Indoor
Environments, which was also the 3rd Japan, Korea and
China Annual Seminar on IAQ that was held on 31st May
to 2nd June 2010 at Tsinghua University in Beijing. The
workshop covered several research interests regarding
exposure risks, health effects and human uptake of the
endocrine disrupting chemicals such as phthalates, bisphe-
nol A and 4-Nonylphenols; toxicology study of fire
retardants such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers
(PBDEs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); occur-
rence of various types of phthalates and exposure risks to
occupants and children in indoor spaces; carcinogenic
risks of indoor polyaromatic compounds; partitioning
coefficients, thermal dynamic equilibria and kinetics of
SVOCs in the indoor environments; the fate of SVOCs on
settled dusts and on human skin; exposure risk assessment
of emissions of wood preservatives in timber framed
apartments; and discussion on analyses, chamber testing
and modelling of emissions of phthalates and diffusion of
SVOCs in dry materials, and their subsequent distribution
Indoor Built Environ 2010;19:499–502 501
leading to exposure risks for occupants of indoor built
environments.
While there is recognition of the importance of further
research to evaluate exposure risks and fate of the SVOCs
in indoor environments, there is also a need to establish
sources of funding. Your editor is pleased that there is
progress particularly in the Far East in terms of funding of
research, although I am a little bit despondent to realise
the research funding situation in the UK and also perhaps,
Europe, in relation to IAQ and materials emissions is
somewhat limited. In some sectors there is a perception
that IAQ and emissions from building materials are not
important perhaps because they consider health effects to
be long term, minor or unproven. Also industries may be
reluctant to fully address the issue because of concerns of
cost and possible effects on consumer confidence in their
products. However, it is important for the industries to be
competitive in the global market, and products need to be
constantly improving, sustainable and have low health
risks to consumers. There is a long-term economic issue as
well as a social and environmental responsibility to
provide goods that do not cause harm to the environment
and people. For development of research and effective
IAQ standardisation, we need to encourage active
engagement by industry with researchers to provide
standards and evaluation techniques that are cost effective
methods for controlling emissions of potentially harmful
chemicals into our internal environments.

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