From Energy Crises to Sustainable Indoor Climate

This is the theme of the AIVC conference to be held October 15-16 in Ghent, Belgium. REHVA Journals, Guidebooks, seminars have been addressing this theme the last decades frequently. This and the fact that this is the 40th AIVC conference makes this event a marker in history. It was announced by Bjarne Olesen in RJ 2015-05 that initiatives have been taken to establish the Indoor Environmental Quality Global Alliance (IEQ-GA). It is expected that the official public presentation of the IEQ-GA will be at this AIVC conference.

https://ieq-ga.net/

Six founding full-member organisations (AIHA, AIVC, AiCARR, ASHRAE, ISHRAE and REHVA) agreed to officially register IEQ-GA as an international global organisation. IEQ-GA is organized and operated for the purpose of bringing together professionals from various disciplines that deal with the indoor environment. IEQ-GA is dedicated to promoting the exchange of indoor environmental information, education and research for the safety and well-being of the general public. The IEQ-GA member-organisations will work together to create a common understanding and messaging of policy agendas and advocacy positions, research gaps, and research results and other collected information that can be transferred to practice in the form of standards, codes, guidelines or other means of dissemination in the widest understanding that support health and Indoor Environmental Quality in buildings and alike where the indoor environment is aimed at human occupancy.

The very recent publication of the last standard in the set of EPB standards developed under EU-Mandate 480 is EN 16798-1:2019 ‘Energy performance of buildings – Ventilation for buildings – Part 1: Indoor environmental input parameters for design and assessment of energy performance of buildings addressing indoor air quality, thermal environment, lighting and acoustics - Module M1-6’, marks also a step forward aligning IEQ and Energy Performance of buildings.

The publication of a BPIE report in October 2018 is also worth mentioning in this context. The title “The inner value of a building – Linking indoor environmental quality and energy performance in building regulation” promises a very interesting overview which this BPIE report does. The report still refers to several earlier published EPB standards like the EN 15251:2007 which is now replaced by the EN 16798-1 but this doesn’t devalue this report.