The effects of indoor and outdoor air pollutants on workers’ productivity in office building

Abstract

In the present-day society, people spend about 80% of their time inside buildings, and specifically 30-40% in workplaces. From this evidence, the indoor environmental quality needs to be investigated, and in particular, the possible sources of indoor-outdoor pollutants and their impact on the human health, comfort and productivity. First, through an examination of the indoor sources of pollution, the research analysed the main substances that affect indoor air quality in an office. Second, the pollution of external origin and its effects on the performance of employees were taken into consideration. Two scenarios were designed for a Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning (HVAC) system in an office building; one by the installation of a biocidal filter and the other by a traditional one. Two methods were applied to evaluate and compare those scenarios; the Cost Benefit Analysis and the Monte Carlo Simulation. From a financial point of view, the investment and management costs of the filters were considered. Instead, the annual benefits included increasing productivity and reducing days of absence from work due to illness. The results confirmed the energy and socio-economic efficiency of the antibacterial filter; it can be considered a solution to achieve the best income.

Association between Building Characteristics and Indoor Environmental Quality through Post-Occupancy Evaluation

“…Although not providing the highest comfort, the feeling of controlling the environment provides the occupants higher satisfaction. Furthermore, providing the installation of filters in a forced ventilation system has positive effects on workers' productivity in office buildings since it reduces indoor air pollutants, as shown by [39]. Implementing forced ventilation in existing buildings might not be physically feasible due to the space requirement for ducts and vents.…”

Designing a decision support system to evaluate the environmental and extra-economic performances of a nearly zero-energy building

“…Energy efficiency interventions aim to improve the energy characteristics of buildings. They could determine an increase in indoor comfort reached inside buildings (Becchio et al , 2019b, c). Indoor comfort could be given by the air quality and thermal, acoustic and visual comfort.…”

Risk Assessment of Indoor Air Quality and Its Association with Subjective Symptoms among Office Workers in Korea

“…IAQ in office environments can result in diverse disease incidence for workers and may be associated with subjective symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, sick building syndrome (SBS), along with non-specific symptoms affecting the eyes and nose [6][7][8][9][10][11]. SBS symptoms include general symptoms (headache, fatigue, difficulty concentrating), mucosal symptoms (eye, throat, nose irritation, cough), skin symptoms (dry or flushed facial skin, itchy eyes, or itchy ears), and asthma and asthma-like symptoms [12,13].…”