Indoor Air Quality, Energy Consumption, & Office Worker Performance

What we are studying:

How improved ventilation and filtration interventions in an office may improve indoor air quality (IAQ) and employee performance and health, with a positive financial outcome for the company when compared to traditional ventilation and filtration.

Why it matters:

Companies spend around 100 times more on personnel costs than utilities. IAQ in offices is among the most important factors potentially affecting both overall environmental quality (Wei et al., 2020) and cognitive function of employees, which ultimately impacts their ability to be productive and contribute to a company’s bottom line. Indeed, an economic and environmental analysis of enhanced ventilation in office buildings across seven different U.S. climate zones showed that doubling the ventilation rate costs less than $40 per employee per year. The same change in ventilation improved the performance of workers by 8%, equivalent to a $6500 increase in employee productivity each year (MacNaughton et al., 2015).

Timeline:

• Study Planning: Nov. 2021 – End of Sept. 2022

• Study in Progress: Start of Oct. 2022 – End of Aug. 2023