Page 18 - Climate Control News magazine February 2023

Good ventilation
a public health priority
THE CALL TO action began when the effective ventilation that could also minimise
energy use and heat loss.
“This is a priority for reducing indoor air pollu-
tion while achieving net zero carbon,” Whitty said. He called for increased research into the most effective ways to reduce air pollution. “This should include researching methods for reducing contaminants formed both inside or outside a building or environment,”
Whitty said.
“There has been far less research and invest-
ment in IAQ in comparison to outdoor pollu- tion. Air pollution has improved and will continue improving provided we are active in tackling it. We can and should go further – and it is technically possible to do so.”
He noted that the definition of indoor air pol- lution can be split into two notable varieties. This included the ingress of pollutants into the indoor environment and contaminants that are emitted in a building itself.
“Inequality in indoor exposure to pollutants is linked to the quality of housing (new build or retrofitted) as well as location – whether the
PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERTS WORLDWIDE ARE CALLING FOR BETTER INDOOR AIR QUALITY (IA) CLAIMING IT SHOULD BE MADE A PUBLIC HEALTH PRIORITY.
ABOVE: UK’s chief medical officer,
Professor Chris Whitty. ABOVE RIGHT: BESA chief executive David Frise
UK’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said decades of pro- gress in curbing external air pollution must be matched with a similar push
to tackle airborne contaminants in indoor environments.
He said it was crucial to ensure that indoor air quality was now made a public health priority alongside a need to go even further with efforts to also reduce external pollution sources.
Professor Whitty said it was technically pos- sible to reduce exposure to air pollution in a range of environments.
Whitty said the negative impacts of poor indoor air quality also needed to be better understood and considered in policy and health initiatives.
This consideration needed to include an improved focus on how the design of buildings and ventilation systems can tackle poor IAQ.
He said the need to improve indoor air quality created a “major engineering challenge” that required the specification and operation of
CLIMATECONTROLNEWS.COM.AU
18