With the rise in interest in the health & wellbeing agenda people are becoming more and more conscious of how the indoor environment can impact on how people feel, perceive, and interact with their surroundings. If we assume that indoor environmental conditions will become of greater significance to occupiers, for those more forward thinking property owners, this shift in interest provides a clear opportunity.

Those that can demonstrate that their buildings provide a healthy productive environment for their occupiers can distinguish themselves within the market.

Conversely, for those who don’t take action this could also become a new risk for commercial owners.

Data is becoming more readily available in todays’ society. Occupiers can soon, and to some extent already, start monitoring their internal conditions either individually through wearables or mobiles or corporately via monitoring devices.

What happens when individuals start posting performance via social media and it becomes publicly available information? Sentiment analysis on Twitter is already a reality and people will soon be able to analyse peoples’ perceptions and views of a building.

How will that then impact on an occupiers’ relations with their owner, if they believe their space is not providing a productive, functional space for their employees?

Accuracy of information will be paramount and an owner will need to have their own sufficient understanding and information at hand to counter any potential challenge and manage the risk.

Whatever the main driver the question for many of our members was 'how do we practically address this?'.

To try and answer that, this week we held a meeting to learn more about the topic and allow members to share current activities and their respective approaches. In doing so the following points were discussed.

What do we mean by Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ)?

Without getting into a technical definition, predominately IEQ is an extension to what the commonly used term indoor air quality (IAQ), measuring VOCs (impacted by materials used); particulate matter (impacted by air in-takes and filtration systems); CO2 and humidity (impacted by ventilation systems and people in the building), to also include factors such as temperate, light and noise in a building.

However, for property owners, the most significant factor is still IAQ.

What devices are out there that measure IEQ?

Over the last couple of years, a number of new devices have entered the market e.g. Foobot, Koto Cube Sensors, Air Mentor Pro. These sensors are quite low in price (£100-200), however, they are typically targeted at the domestic market and their applicability for the commercial space in terms of their accuracy was questioned.

There are also a number of commercial devices available which have been targeted at the industrial/laboratory sector. These are significantly more expensive, but have much greater levels of accuracy. However, again, they have not been designed specifically with the general workplace in mind.

We heard that, in general, the market offering property owners ideally want are not yet out there, but that the market is developing rapidly to fill this space. For example, devices such as Pureliving DST, HuxConnect and WirePas. We expect there to be completely different market offerings in the next couple of years.

What do owners need to consider when choosing a monitoring device?

A key challenge for owners is now to know what devices are appropriate when they become available. The conversations centred around the following questions that owners should ask:

• What's the aim of collecting information? The aims of the overall exercise will impact on the parameters you wish to measure, the accuracy of the device you need and the length of time you want to measure. For examples, to get a quick snap shot across a portfolio or for certification at a property level e.g. BREEAM, WELL Building Standard, FitWell or RESET, then a commercial grade standalone IEQ/IAQ assessment will be required; for an occupier engagement piece then a number of low cost domestic grade products may be appropriate that provide continuous simple messaging; or for a more in depth monitoring exercise then more commercial grade devices that provide continuous monitoring may be required.
• How will data be transmitted? Members noted, as with all devices that transmit data, connectivity is a significant challenge. You'll need to consider the communication options of the device and what fits your internal requirements e.g. wifi, 3G or hard cabling; the need for dataloggers and other transmission devices. Many devices that are recent to the market are built to communicate over wifi, yet a number of members noted that after purchasing such equipment their internal IT policies meant they couldn't connect to the corporate network and therefore needed to set up additional 3G modules to transmit data which brought its own challenges around signal strength and loss of data if a data logger wasn't in place.
• Where will the data be stored? A key consideration for owners is whether you want to buy a standalone device that sends data to a separate monitoring platform or potentially linked to the BMS; or whether you want an end-to-end combined device and proprietary software solution. Both have their pros and cons with conversations mirroring what happens for energy monitoring.
• How will you use the data? It is critical that data is used rather than simply stored and never reviewed. Management processes will need to put in place to periodically monitor performance and determine what action is required. Interesting, ethical questions around data ownership and how information could be used was raised.

So what should owners be doing now?

Whilst, it was generally felt the technology was developing at such a rate that this area could look substantially different in the next 12 months or more, it was felt there were still a number of areas owners could act on now. These included:

• Baselining: gathering information, assessing where you are and identifying key risks and opportunities. Many members were planning an exercise of monitoring air intake and IAQ across their buildings as an initial starting point. In particular, where there was the opportunity to measure base building performance before occupier fit-out has taken place.
• Incorporating into internal policies: Considering how risks can be mitigated through internal processes, providing a more proactive rather than reactive approach. For example, the specification of appropriate ventilation/filtration rates for base building HVAC and the inclusion of monitoring equipment with suitable commissioning in development briefs; educating and guiding occupiers on the pit-falls and opportunities in fit-outs; budgeting for regular air-testing and periodic filter change regimes. 
• Piloting in your own space: Property owners naturally have their own head office which provides the perfect test bed to get to grips with the technology. The experience you gain and challenges you face will be exactly the same as your occupiers. At least four of our members are taking this approach.

Based on discussions this is clearly a growing area of interest for our members and one which we will no doubt be exploring again soon.