Guest health and wellness is of prime importance to hoteliers, and one of the most challenging areas is indoor air quality because you can’t see it, feel it, or hear it, and most times you can’t even smell it. It often takes someone getting sick to raise the air quality to everyone’s attention. Indoor air is a difficult topic to get your arms around, no pun intended, and occupant health is a central concern when discussing indoor air quality.
Indoor air quality refers to monitoring and reducing indoor air contaminants and providing a place that building occupants can function well without effects from microbial contaminates (mold, bacteria), gases (carbon monoxide, radon, volatile organic compounds—VOCs), particulates, and other adverse airborne effects. Using ventilation or filtration to reduce contaminates is the most common way to improve indoor air quality. A well-publicized result of poor indoor air quality is Legionnaire’s Disease which is caused by the waterborne bacterium Legionella. It grows best in slow-moving or still, warm water. The primary route of exposure is most commonly from evaporative cooling towers or showerheads. The presence of Legionella in commercial building water supplies is highly under-reported, as healthy people require heavy exposure to acquire infection.
There are some real measurable and immediate solutions to maintaining good indoor air quality. Maintenance standards and employee training are two of the most important parts of a good indoor air quality program. Standards ensuring maintenance, testing and monitoring of plumbing, equipment and mechanical systems, and employee education related to how to handle mold or mildew contaminates properly are the keys to achieving optimal indoor air quality. Air quality monitoring is important in catching problems before they make someone sick. This can be accomplished with installed monitoring systems or through a regular IAQ (indoor air quality) testing regime. There are many companies that provide these services; a good place to start a search is IAQA (Indoor Air Quality Assn.) which is a nonprofit trade organization.
Avoid Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Utilizing low emitting building materials and cleaning products (no- or low-VOC or formaldehyde-free, for example) will keep any new contaminates from being introduced to the interior. Most manufacturers can provide you with a Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS), which provides information on all of a product’s ingredients. High-emitting materials storage cannot be forgotten in any program for improving indoor air. Proper storage of these types of materials is important. When high toxicity materials are used, there must be proper ventilation.
Most owners of lodging facilities understand the full breadth of a smoke free policy. For those of you who have not taken that step, just talk to a general manager of a smoke free hotel about the advantages. These include: a simplified reservation system, reduced wear and tear in rooms due to the elimination of smoke damage and burns, and a cleaner environment for employees and guests. Having a professional help design or review your existing outside air delivery system and filtration is another way to help improve the indoor air quality of a building.
Indoor air quality standards in your municipality could be changing in the next couple of years. In 2010 ASHRAE’s (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers) Proposed 189.1 Standard for the Design of High Performance, Green Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings will be released and many municipalities are expected to adopt this standard. “These standards are written in mandatory language to allow for adoption with building codes,” said Gordon Holness, ASHRAE president.
Staying up to date on the emerging standards will keep your resort ahead of the curve. The Proposed Standard 189.1 covers many topic areas typically included in green building rating systems: site sustainability, water use efficiency, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and the building’s impact on the atmosphere, materials and resources. You can review this new standard by going to http://spc189.ashraepcs.org. The EPA (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) also has a number of programs and standards available related to: asbestos, radon, mold, etc. Visit www.epa.gov/iaq/index.html for free information.
Look for Third Party Certification
For building materials look for products that carry a certification related to indoor air quality. Greenguard Indoor Air Quality certification is a product certification program for low emitting interior building materials, furnishings, and finish systems. All GREENGUARD Certified Products have been tested for their chemical emissions performance and can be found in the GREENGUARD Online Product Guide. SCS (Scientific Certifications Systems) offers three indoor air quality certification programs to improve the environmental performance of building products. The program applies to any product generally used within an enclosed indoor environment: furniture systems, seating and components, hard surface flooring, paint, wall coverings, casework, and insulation.
Green Seal has environmental leadership standards that cover a range of products in areas such as construction, cleaning, lighting, paints, paper, restaurant and food service. In 1999, Green Seal published the Green Seal Environmental Standard for Lodging Properties, GS-33, which focuses on waste minimization, energy conservation and management, management of fresh water resources, waste water management, pollution prevention, and organizational commitment like environmentally sensitive purchasing. There are many standards and certification program available that can provide all the tools necessary to manage a lodging facility in an environmentally responsible manner; this is no longer something any property has to pioneer.
Guest health and wellness is the outcome of good indoor air quality, even if we can’t see it, hear it, touch it, or most of the time smell it. Indoor air is something that we need to keep as a top priority for lodging facilities.
Dina M. Belon is a principal and an owner of RUSH Hospitality, a sustainable hospitality renovation company, providing design, procurement and construction services. Dina is a licensed interior designer in the state of Florida, and a LEED Accredited Professional. She is an active member of the U.S. Green Building Council. Additionally, Dina is very involved in NEWH (The Hospitality Industry Network), chairing the Sunshine Chapters Sustainable Committee, and as a member of the International Sustainable Hospitality Committee, which helps educate the hospitality community on sustainability. Dina is also a member of the ARDA (American Resort Development Assn.) Construction and Design Committee and the Sustainability Task Force. She can be reached at dbelon@rushhospitality.com.
