Forum discussion

The Business of Healthy Buildings 12/9 @ 1 PM EST

Hi All, I was initially reluctant to share this, but I've seen similar posts and I think it's in line with our mission and interests so I'll go ahead with it.

Tomorrow 12/9 at 1 PM EST I'm moderating a panel of industry leaders in public health (as it pertains to buildings), construction finance, and project development to review the business of healthy buildings - balancing design, wellness, and ROI.  Two of the panelists you've likely already heard from this year - John Macomber of Harvard Business School, and Joe Allen of the Harvard School of Public Health.  They wrote the book "Healthy Buildings" which was released early 2020.  

The intent of the discussion is to review the economics of health-oriented building strategies so that owners, CFO's, facilities staff, and designers all have the information they need to secure the financing necessary to put these measures into practice.  Of course this webinar is only an hour long and for a general industry audience so we can only go so deep, but these panelists are all incredibly sharp and full of wisdom so I'm hoping it will provide a lot of value.

Also, we'll be taking select questions from the audience, so if you've read the book and have some pointed questions you want answered by the experts themselves, this could be your chance!

The webinar is free so feel free to share it with anyone you might think is interested:

http://www.consigli.com/the-business-of-healthy-buildings-webinar/

Stay healthy and safe!

 

 

0

You rely on LEEDuser. Can we rely on you?

LEEDuser is supported by our premium members, not by advertisers.

Go premium for $15.95  »

Wed, 12/09/2020 - 19:40

It was a good webinar Steven- thanks for the reminder! I appreciated the crumb thrown toward multi-family. It will be interesting to see how this market sector reacts to the influx of data from home IAQ devices and the growing awareness of IAQ and health as I don't think everyone will all rush back to 8-6 office work even with a vaccine.  Would love to see this IAQ data and the HELIX (home energy labeling institute exchange) data from NEEP visualized somehow to show trends in residential energy use and IAQ based on real data.  

Wed, 12/09/2020 - 21:00

Thanks for sharing this webinar info. with us Steven. It was a good one.  

Wed, 12/09/2020 - 22:00

I realize I had PST in my head Sorry to miss it Please let us know if it is available through recording

Tue, 12/29/2020 - 16:35

Thanks all!  Recording available here: https://www.consigli.com/the-business-of-healthy-buildings/ Alison, to your point, multifamily is a super interesting case, in my mind.  When we did our energy, resilience, and health ROI presentation in 2019, multifamily was one of the hardest ones to pinpoint the health and wellness ROI which was generally predicated on improved employee performance to maximize value generated.  However, 2020 has completely flipped those dynamics, and I would expect owners and operators to be integrating these strategies as a competitive necessity moving forward. I think the combination of increased stringency in building energy codes and the increased focus on health and wellness will force us to find solutions that work for both.  Existing buildings will be the real challenge.  By the way, did you see that starting now and moving forward all Enterprise Green Communities projects will also be WELL Certified by default?  I'm not sure how that works yet, but I need to learn more. Receiving the questions for this webinar was interesting: The most dominant question we received was about ionization technologies.  I really appreciate this forum as a resource because we already had a really good discussion thread on that.  I think people's strong interest here has to do with the myriad of marketing information, the number of variations on the same general technique, and people's desire to find a way to clean the air without needing to dilute as frequently.  Perhaps that last point is a nod to the hopes improving IAQ without the energy penalty. Other interesting questions were: -Whether or not we will eventually see a building health score similar to an EUI -Whether or not there are any computerized maintenance management systems that can be deployed for ongoing to maintenance to prove building wellness effectiveness and any standard procedures or guidelines -How to provide healthy IAQ strategies in museums where temperature and humidity conditions are highly constrained by collection preservation mandates After this webinar, I used the momentum internally to recommend air quality monitoring and air purification devices for all our construction trailers and field offices, which was immediately adopted as option for any team to utilize.  However, it raised the question in my mind: If I could ask John and Joe again, I wonder if what they would say as to whether air purification alone could be equated with any increased productivity without the introduction of additional outside air.  I didn't end up needing the productivity piece to make a convincing argument for our internal stakeholders, but, in my mind, part of my basis for investing in the air purifiers would be the value of improved productivity.  I only realized after I made my case that's not really exactly what the CogFX study looked at. Last comment: Someone asked me after the webinar if the CogFX study would ever be repeated.  I thought it has been repeated, but looking into it, their second study really was not the same as the first.  It was in the field, and it was comparing people in green-certified buildings vs. non-certified buildings on the same cognitive tests as the first study.  It essentially turned into a default advocacy tool for LEED, because it found just being in a green certified building improved cognitive function by 26% and reduced sick building symptoms by 30%.  This is very intriguing to me, because all buildings were rated to exceed minimum ventilation rates and have low VOC's, leaving the differentiator to be whether or not a formal green building certification had been obtained.   The sample size was only 10 buildings and 100 people, and it was in the field, and not double blind, and people were measured against each other instead of against themselves, so they had to control for things like annual earnings, job category and level of schooling.  Those are a lot of qualifiers to process. CogFX study 3 seems to be pretty much study 2 but on a global scale and over a longer period of time.  It will be interesting to see where those results land as well.  

Add new comment

To post a comment, you need to register for a LEEDuser Basic membership (free) or login to your existing profile.