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Since the 1974 oil crisis, energy efficiency has
dominated the design and operation of buildings. Energy efficient
buildings were characterised by "tight" designs, which reduced
ingress of outside air and maximised recirculation. This led to
adoption by the World Health Organisation of the term "Sick
Building Syndrome" (SBS) and the concept of "Building Related
Illness" (BRI) which focused on "Indoor Air Quality" (IAQ).
In 1990, Dr Vyt Garnys of CETEC Pty Ltd was on the
Australian Building Owners and Managers committee (BOMA – now the
Property Council of Australia – PCA) for Managing Indoor Air Quality
which recognised the concept of "Indoor Climate" and "Indoor
Environment Quality" (IEQ).
The BOMA publications recognised that the causes of
health and comfort problems in buildings was caused by Indoor Climate
(temperature, humidity, airflow), Indoor Pollutants (IAQ), lighting
and noise, ergonomics, psychosocial and other "Job Related Factors"
(JRF??). The USEPA released a similar publication at about the same
time.
Since then workplace stress, gender and other
factors have been recognised as additionally affecting the health
and wellbeing of occupants. Thus for assessing IEQ, CETEC has
adopted the same approach that we used for all other environmental
assessments. CETEC addresses all interactions between the occupant
and their physical environment – that is, Ecology.
The term "Indoor", is now too restrictive.
CETEC is called upon to assess, for example, schools and kindergartens
where the outdoor and indoor exposures and interactions must be
considered. This is also the case for sports venues, loading docks,
external tobacco smoking, legionella management and adjacent traffic
and industrial emissions.
"Building Managers" are now called "Facility
Managers". Thus we must consider the WHOLE FACILITY in our
assessments.
Henceforth, CETEC has adopted the term
FACILITY ECOLOGY
which considers SBS, BRI, IEQ, IAQ and JRF to be
essential specialist subsets with the need to adopt a
holistic approach to protect the health and wellbeing of
people.
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