How to Improve Indoor Air Quality in the Workplace
Tuesday, 24th May 2022
Optimal indoor air quality (IAQ) boosts employee health, increases productivity, and cuts the costs of sick days, building maintenance, and energy use. For employers and facilities managers, improving IAQ should be one of your top priorities.
So, how can you improve indoor air quality in the workplace?
Reducing pollutants, improving ventilation, and optimising temperature, light, and humidity will ultimately make a big difference. But for employers who are serious about air quality, there’s only one place to start. That’s with data.
Only with concrete insights into the quality of your buildings’ air can you implement and track smart and efficient IAQ improvements. At Infogrid, we make that easy. With our Healthy Building System, you can use IoT sensors to track indoor air quality discreetly and efficiently, while receiving IAQ data to a single, central device.
Here, we’ll show you how our technology can help you improve air quality in the workplace. But first, let’s see why it is so worth your time:
The Risk of Poor Indoor Air Quality
Indoor air quality (IAQ) refers to the overall quality of ambient air inside and around buildings. Temperature, humidity, ventilation, and pollutants all make a difference.
Why does IAQ matter? While we rightly worry about outdoor air pollution, the quality of indoor air could be a more urgent public health problem.
The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates we spend roughly 90% of our time indoors. Meanwhile, studies suggest that some indoor spaces have concentrations of air pollutants two to five times higher than outside.
As a result, low IAQ has tangible effects on our wellbeing, productivity, and planet:
Poor health. In Infogrid’s Creating a Healthy Workplace report, over half of employees we surveyed said that poor IAQ has an impact on their mental and physical health. This is supported by research showing that long-term exposure to low-quality air can increase the risk of cancer, respiratory illness, and heart disease.
Sick building syndrome. In some buildings, otherwise healthy people can experience specific symptoms, such as a runny nose, dry skin, or coughing or wheezing. It’s thought to be due to the quality of the air.
Low productivity. Studies have suggested that poor indoor air quality can cost businesses up to $6,500 in lost productivity a year per employee.
Dissatisfied employees. Employees want to see employers do more to improve the healthiness of the workplace. According to one study, 93% would stay longer at a company if they offered a healthier work environment.
Wasted energy. Some methods to improve IAQ are known to reduce energy efficiency. But there are smarter ways to do it. With our Healthy Buildings System, we helped one supermarket save $1.6 million on energy costs every year, thanks to more efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.
In the home, in schools, and in commercial buildings, improving air quality is imperative. But for businesses serious about growth, it’s not just health that’s under threat—but your bottom line too.
So, how to tackle poor air quality? There’s only one place to start:
Improving IAQ Starts with Measurement
Without concrete insights, you cannot effectively manage your air quality. Here are the most important pollutants you should be measuring to understand your IAQ:
Carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2, a gas that we produce when we breathe, is one of the most effective indicators of air quality. Generally, you want CO2 levels to stay below 800ppm. If it is consistently higher, improved ventilation or occupancy may help.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These are indoor air pollutants produced by cleaning supplies, paints, furniture, devices such as printers, and stationery items like glue. They are known to cause serious health problems. While there are no official air quality standards regarding VOCs, monitoring their levels is crucial.
Other chemicals, including carbon monoxide, radon, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide all contribute to indoor air pollution. Knowing what’s present in your workplace can help you make the necessary changes.
Particulate matter. Dust mites, dander, and mould reduce the quality of the air too. Keep these to a minimum. The EPA recommends no more than 12 micrograms per cubic metre of air (μg/m³).
Humidity. High humidity can encourage mould growth, while low humidity is a common cause of employee discomfort. Getting it right starts with knowing your humidity levels right now.
Light levels. Although not a direct indicator of air quality, light levels have an impact on employee performance and wellbeing. In fact, according to one 2019 study, they are the most important factor affecting employees after air quality.
But how do you measure all of this? Infogrid’s Healthy Building System makes it easy. With the world’s smallest sensors, you can receive live, automated updates on IAQ across all your buildings. Find out more below.
How to Improve Indoor Air Quality: 8 Steps
There are many steps businesses can take to improve indoor air quality in the workplace. Guided by IAQ data, you can understand better which is right for you:
Cut the source of pollutants. If your data reveals there are pollutants in the air in your workplace, removing or replacing the things that produce them will be a priority:
Check for leaks. Water or gas leaks can be a serious source of indoor air pollution—but they can go unnoticed.
Our leak-tracking system can help you monitor pipe leakages before they have an impact. It enabled one Infogrid client to save 69% on their maintenance bill.
Use low-VOC products. Swapping cleaning products, furniture, or fittings for low-VOC alternatives will cut pollutants at their source.
Get serious about your no-smoking policy. Cigarette smoke affects air quality, even indoors. Ensuring smokers stay away from sources of fresh air, such as open windows, will be crucial.
Improve ventilation. Optimising ventilation is one of the most effective ways to improve IAQ in the workplace—and it’s known to significantly reduce viral risk. Opening windows may be enough, but mechanical ventilation systems are twice as efficient.
Optimise occupancy. The more people in a room, the lower the quality of the air. Measuring occupancy with Infogrid’s Healthy Building System can help you make smart decisions about building use. By tracking occupancy data improving air quality can be as simple as making better use of the spaces across your buildings.
Regulate humidity. Installing technologies to regulate humidity levels is an easy win for businesses and facilities managers who want to combat low IAQ. With simple dehumidifiers, one of our clients was able to reduce viral risk in the workplace by 80%—supporting a safe return to work.
Find the right temperature. Indoor temperature impacts humidity levels, viral risk, and employee comfort. Yet due to changes in occupancy and weather, temperatures are highly volatile. To optimise IAQ, you need a smart HVAC system that can regulate temperature regardless of these conditions.
Keep it clean. While cleaning products can negatively impact IAQ through VOCs, ensuring that your office space is hygienic and allergen-free will keep safe and comfortable for everyone. When cleaning, don’t skip air filters and vents, nor your HVAC system.
Add indoor plants. Alone, potted plants are unlikely to have much of an impact. However, there’s evidence that they can reduce the concentration of VOCs in the air. And studies show they improve employee wellbeing too.
Keep on monitoring. With steps in place to improve air quality, your work doesn’t stop there. IAQ can change with the seasons, the weather, and light levels. And if you want to keep on top of it, you’ll need to keep monitoring your data into the future. Infogrid makes that easy.
Take Control of IAQ with Infogrid’s Healthy Buildings System
Infogrid’s Healthy Buildings System promises to revolutionise the way you track indoor air quality. Instead of time-consuming and costly manual tracking, our smart system delivers real-time data on your buildings’ IAQ directly to your device.
Here’s how it works:
State-of-the-art IoT sensors continuously monitor VOCs, CO2 levels, humidity, air pressure, and other IAQ metrics, unobtrusively and automatically.
Our sensors deliver data to a central artificial intelligence dashboard, where you can track IAQ trends across all of your rooms, buildings, and sites.
The easy-install, zero-maintenance, and infinitely scalable system means you can be tracking IAQ data and building health in a matter of minutes.
Equipped with the smartest IAQ data, you can make better business decisions, drive efficiency, and improve the wellbeing of all your staff.
It’s the first step in improving indoor air quality. Get started with our demo.
