Conference Agenda

Built environment offers protection against extreme weather, natural disasters, and other environmental factors. Building phase and usage of buildings contributes 20%-40% of the greenhouse gases (GHGs) being an important contributor to climate change. Climate change has important direct and indirect effects on health. Thus, reduction of the carbon footprint is critical in reducing the health effects of climate change. Climate change mitigation and adaptation have potential health co-benefits, but sometimes, the needs for climate change mitigation may be contradictory to protection of public health.

Occupant behavior includes the range of attitudes, actions and practices associated with the building’s characteristics and with habits used to maximize comfort. Such behavior influences household energy consumption and associated GHG emissions. This also means that housing sector has a huge potential for climate change mitigation. Occupancy patterns relate to the amount of time spent at home and other indoor environments. The working and social lifestyle of the occupants is a major determinant of energy consumption. Most people typically spend about 60–90% of their time at home. Household energy consumption is linked directly to the amount of occupant time spent indoors.

Adaptation to climate change often requires additional energy. For example, cooling decreases the health risks related heat waves, but consumes energy. Use of fossil fuel-based energy increase climate change. Transformation to clean energy is needed in climate change adaptation. Similarly, increase in ventilation rate reduces indoor air concentrations and reduces health effects, but increase in air changes consumes energy and depending on the source of energy will contribute to climate change. Future sustainable housing needs to offer healthy environments, use mainly using renewable materials and predominantly non-fossil energy.

Although indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and human health have been on the agenda of the green building industry, a new emphasis is being placed on building features that explicitly promote the experience of occupants. However, evidence of the performance of green-certified buildings from the occupant perspective remains inconsistent, with numerous questions on how to effectively design, assess and promote “healthy buildings”. Focusing on the key IEQ categories of indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting and acoustics, this talk will attempt to synthesize emerging knowledge related to IEQ and health; and to identify research and practical challenges that may impede the performance of green-rated buildings. This talk will also attempt to set the foundations for researchers and green rating system developers to capture immediate and long-term opportunities that can help to form an integrated vision for future directions in green buildings with particular emphasis on human health and well-being. While attention will be centered on green rating schemes, the proposed recommendations could find application in any building development, with or without certification.

This talk will conclude by attempting to depict an envisioned future of green buildings what is based on integrated management of human (subjective and objective IEQ, health and human experience) and environmental objectives (circularity, resources and energy use). The envisioned future of green buildings will need to be based on a thorough knowledge of the building and its users, their inter- and intra-individual variability, their spatiotemporal localization, their activities, their history of exposures, together with a capacity of anticipation of the likelihood of future events and preparedness for them.