Healthy Building Movement – What is it?

Healthy Building Movement

The Healthy Building Movement is a growing ideology that aims to promote green living through the use of green sustainable buildings. The Healthy Building Movement has many benefits, as stated by author John D. Macomber in his new book, Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity. Macomber and Harvard professor Joseph G. Allen dive deep into the “nine foundations for a healthy building” and how even the most minor changes to increase air flow can significantly affect the working environment.(1) These nine foundations for a healthy building are growing in popularity as new buildings are skyrocketing. These conditions are critical to those who are starting to buy spaces in these buildings.  

Americans spend approximately 90% of their time indoors.(2) As humans spend more and more time indoors, we must optimize and make it the safest, healthiest space possible. If the indoor environment is made to optimal conditions, not only will it improve health, but it can also improve the quantity and quality of work in offices. Optimal indoor conditions are areas with high air ventilation and low carbon dioxide concentrations. Macomber and Allen have been able to quantify the effects of improving indoor conditions in their book. They stated that workers’ performance dramatically improved across all nine dimensions of cognitive function when study subjects worked in the optimal conditions.”(1) To create the optimal indoor environment costs the company nearly nothing, after all, it’s just air!

Resources

1 Senz, Kristen. “Why Covid-19 Raises the Stakes for Healthy Buildings.” HBS Working Knowledge, 20 Apr. 2020, https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/why-covid-19-raises-the-stakes-for-building-health?cid.
2 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1989. Report to Congress on indoor air quality: Volume 2. EPA/400/1-89/001C. Washington, DC.
3“9 Foundations of a Healthy Building.” 9 Foundations, https://9foundations.forhealth.org/.