Indoor air quality helps create fit-for-purpose environments.
The average New Zealander spends 70-90% of our their indoors, so it’s important that our home and work environments are fit for purpose. If indoor air quality (IAQ) is poor, it can have a significant impact on health, creativity and productivity.
When we’re in indoor environments that are designed for work or study, we rely on our cognitive abilities for concentration, focus, and to produce our best work. But no matter how hard we try, these skills suffer if the indoor air quality is poor. Studies have shown that attention span and memory function are reduced, as is our ability to use logic and reasoning to provide creative solutions.
Substandard air quality can also reduce our ability to process the information we hear or read, reducing comprehension and clarity of thinking.
And it’s not only people who are impacted by IAQ. Poor air quality also interferes with a building’s prime purpose, having a net negative effect on a building’s life cycle. The impact of poor IAQ has a significant and very real cost stemming from decreased productivity and reduced performance of students and workers. In the case of hospitals, it has even been found to delay the discharge of patients.
With occupant wellbeing essential to achieving a productive, healthy and fully-functioning building, the question you need to ask is this: is your IAQ ensuring that your building is fit for purpose?
Commercial buildings use 21 percent of New Zealand’s electricity,costing business $800 million every year.
Energy efficiency is a growing focus worldwide, particularly for businesses. For many building owners, it is the main route to net zero energy and is a key metric for tracking their efforts to create a more sustainable future. NABERSNZ, the rating system for energy efficiency in commercial offices in New Zealand, is a straightforward system for benchmarking performance in the pursuit of making buildings more energy efficient, greener and healthier. A building’s biggest consumers of energy are usually HVAC and lighting systems – especially if they are poorly designed and managed. For that reason, Jacksons Engineering has integrated NABERSNZ ratings into our processes for over a decade. We can undertake your rating, then work with you to assess and improve your HVAC and lighting systems to reduce your energy consumption and improve NABERSNZ performance, without compromising on indoor air quality.
