From the Editor
Pop quiz: After Energy & Atmosphere (35) and Sustainable Sites (26), which of the five LEED-EBOM categories has the third most available points? The answer: Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), which has 15 possible points, and also is tied with Energy & Atmosphere for the most prerequisites (3).

Those three prerequisites include meeting the ASHRAE indoor air quality standard 62.1-2007, prohibiting smoking and implementing a green cleaning program. All three of those requirements fit into the traditional notion of indoor air quality (IAQ).

So do the first five optional credits of the section. But then the strict focus on IAQ veers off a bit. The remaining credits expand beyond that traditional notion of IAQ into strategies, such as occupant control of lighting systems, performing occupant satisfaction surveys, and maximizing daylighting and views.

Indeed, with its LEED rating systems, the U.S. Green Building Council has played an instrumental role in expanding IAQ goals into a much further-reaching, more-encompassing term: IEQ. After all, factors in the indoor environment such as daylighting, acoustics, thermal comfort, and lighting levels and control can have just as much of an effect on occupant comfort and satisfaction (and productivity?) as the quality of the air. That doesn’t mean that IAQ isn’t important anymore. It’s just that facility managers should consider strategies beyond clean air in buildings.

Have you adopted measures in your facilities that specifically focus on the idea of IEQ? What have you done? Have your occupants thanked you?

Cheers,

Green Strategies
The Evolution of Indoor Environmental Quality

Indoors, facility managers should consider daylighting, acoustics, thermal comfort and indoor air quality as part of a new approach to occupant satisfaction.

In the News
ASHRAE Encourages States to Meet Current Energy Codes
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers applauds the Department of Energy’s effort to look into what it will take to require states to adopt the most current version of its 90.1 energy code. Currently, the building codes of 14 states don’t meet the requirements of ASHRAE 90.1-2007.

Green Multimedia
Tip of the Day: Optimizing Lighting-Control Performance
One of the key components of indoor environmental quality is good lighting. This podcast explains how facility managers can keep lighting controls working as their design intended.

GreenTech Conference & Exposition

An Introduction to LEED-EB

This presentation by Jim Newman of the Newman Consulting Group at the 2010 GreenTech Conference & Exposition delves into the LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance rating system and provides facility managers tips and tricks on how to achieve many of the individual credits.