Published April 17, 2020
Listen to our first episode of Urban Green Live, hosted by Urban Green Council CEO John Mandyck. This livestreamed interview series features industry experts from NYC and around the globe to talk about solutions for a zero-carbon future.
On April 17, 2020, we were delighted to welcome Dr. Joseph Allen as our first guest. He’s a research professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, director of Harvard’s Healthy Buildings program and co-author of “Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity.” Dr. Allen’s views on COVID-19 have been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, CNBC and more. In this episode, Dr. Allen shares his expertise at the intersection of buildings and health and answers audience questions.
Key Takeaways
Buildings play a critical role in managing the spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19.
-> Properly managed buildings can minimize the spread of infectious diseases, while poorly operated ones can exacerbate it.
-> Effective building management to prevent disease spread involves a combination of strategies; enhanced ventilation, air filtration, use of air purifiers, enforcing personal behavior changes (e.g., mask-wearing), and rigorous cleaning protocols.
Health and energy efficiency in building management are not mutually exclusive; they must be considered together.
-> Holistic strategies that account for both indoor air quality and energy efficiency can improve overall health outcomes and reduce costs.
-> Energy-efficient buildings reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which in turn, mitigates climate change
-> Moreover, healthy buildings lead to fewer sick occupants and can increase productivity, which can have economic benefits that offset initial costs.
Speakers
John Mandyck
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Joe Allen
Assistant Professor, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Dr. Joseph G. Allen is an assistant professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-author of Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity, with John Macomber at Harvard Business School. He began his career conducting forensic health investigations of sick buildings. At Harvard, Dr. Allen directs the Healthy Buildings program where he created ‘The 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building’. He works with Fortune 500 companies on implementing Healthy Building strategies in their global portfolios and presents internationally on the topic of Healthy Buildings. His work has been featured widely in the popular press, including the Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Financial Times, USA Today, NPR, The Washington Post, Fortune, New York Times, and Harvard Business Review, Dr. Allen is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology and the journal Indoor Air.
Q&A
John Mandyck: Can building HVAC filters capture Covid-19 to contain the spread indoors?
Dr. Joe Allen: The short answer is yes. The longer answer is there’s nuance and it depends. So first answer, can you filter the virus? This virus is transmitted across multiple modes of transmission. We need to address all of them. The work with the mechanical system and filtration addresses one of the pathways. If we address it with filtration, it doesn’t address all of the modes of transmission.
In terms of filtration, we know the virus particle size. Also, viruses don’t exist naked. If I’m infectious and I cough or sneeze, that virus is enveloped in liquid and the particle sizes range from very large to quite small. Depending on the grade of filter you’re using, filters can filter out particles of different sizes differentially.
John Mandyck: In a commercial office space setting, what percentage of infections are caused by aerosols versus the other two modes of transmission?
Dr. Joe Allen: Here’s the truth. We don’t know what the difference is in the relative modes of transmission, and we may never know. That’s unsettling for people to hear, but I’ll tell you that we’ve been studying influenza for decades and we still don’t know which mode of transmission dominates. In fact, it causes a lot of contention in the scientific community.
John Mandyck: Our corporate office is considering monitoring indoor air quality upon returning to work. What are key parameters we should be including to safeguard our employees?
Dr. Joe Allen: It’s a great idea to measure indoor environmental quality. In terms of what you can measure, there’s a handful of things you can measure in real time that give you a sense of how the indoor environment is performing. Things like carbon dioxide, which can be a proxy for ventilation. We can measure airborne particles to see if you have an issue with infiltration of particles or an indoor source.
You can think about the classics like temperature and humidity for thermal health or thermal comfort. Then, as we think more broadly beyond this issue, thinking about things like acoustic performance, lighting, and a whole host of other factors.
John Mandyck: How important is humidity control, specifically raising humidity to optimal levels in office buildings?
Dr. Joe Allen: Some viruses survive better at low humidity, others at very high humidity. There’s a sweet spot between 40% and 60% relative humidity where the evidence suggests that viruses are beneficial or protective against viruses.
John Mandyck: Can you please speak more about the co-benefits between a low-carbon world and health?
Dr. Joe Allen: The website cobe.forhealth.org is a great resource for case studies, peer reviewed science, and COBE calculators. I can explain the co-benefit analysis at a high level. Let’s say your building has an energy efficiency measure put in. That reduces the demand on the electrical grid. Depending on where that energy is coming from, that will determine how many air pollutants are emitted.
We know from epidemiological studies what those levels of air pollutants mean in terms of your health and climate damages. What we’ve done with this is create the COBE calculators. These calculators string all of the data sets together and allow you to take an energy efficiency decision at a portfolio level, a city level, and a state level.
John Mandyck: In your opinion, how do you think operations in the future are going to change now that we are experiencing the impact of that lack of preparedness with this pandemic? How do you envision healthy buildings playing a role in that?
Dr. Joe Allen: Healthy buildings will be front and center. This is not just a public health movement, it’s a healthy buildings movement. We’ve underinvested in buildings from a public health standpoint, but the cost of preventative measures are trivial relative to the benefits.
John Mandyck: How can we ensure that buildings maintenance workers and cleaning crews are safe and protected while working inside of infected buildings?
Dr. Joe Allen: As we talk about the different protocols that need to be in place in terms of minimizing infectious disease in buildings, we have to talk about how to keep the workers safe. Classic occupational health control measures, such as giving them the proper PPE, is useful but you can’t deliver PPE without training. It’s ineffective and it does not work without teaching staff the proper way to use the mask, the proper way to protect themselves, and also the proper way to do this kind of cleaning.
John Mandyck: How will construction change? Will fewer people be allowed to work on site at a time? Will it take longer to build buildings?
Dr. Joe Allen: There’s no certainty in this at all. Every sector of society will likely change. The risk of transmission in outdoor construction sites is probably lower, but workers will need to continue wearing masks and social distance indoors.
John Mandyck: Indoor air pollution targets marginalized communities with asthma, allergies, and other chronic illnesses. We’ve seen that these same communities are more susceptible to severe symptoms of the Covid-19 virus. What are the best strategies, property managers and operation managers can do to address this environmental injustice issue while on a limited budget?
Dr. Joe Allen: There are clear disparities based on race and economics across every public health issue we face. This virus is also hitting another group quite hard, and that’s the elderly. We see this in my state, Massachusetts, where over 40% of deaths are in senior homes. A large percent of the population in Massachusetts’ health care system are economically disadvantaged people. Our control efforts should be focused on this population.
John Mandyck: What’s your opinion on UVC use in office buildings?
Dr. Joe Allen: It’s a technology that can certainly be effective and kill airborne biologicals. I think it all depends on the application in terms of how effective it will be. There are several other factors including residence time, what type of environment it is, and things like this. For example, a health care or senior home is going to have a higher risk profile than a commercial office building.
I’m just hesitant to endorse or not endorse any one technology because it’s really about the application of that technology.
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