Energy costs, open-concept offices and new variable standards are affecting air quality
The quality of air circulating in commercial office towers has again become a topic of concern among landlords and tenants.
New variable standards for air quality introduced last year, rising energy prices and the trend toward putting more employees into smaller spaces have all combined to make air quality an issue for tenants, property managers and building owners -- and some landlords have developed innovative responses.
"As companies attempt to save on real estate costs by moving toward things like open-concept offices, air quality becomes vital," said John O'Toole, executive vice-president at brokerage CB Richard Ellis Ltd.
Poor air quality leads to increased employee sick days, drowsiness and lack of focus on the job, he added.
"For the past 20 years, all major landlords have paid attention to air quality," said Elia Sterling, president of Theodor Sterling Associates Ltd. of Vancouver, which provides environmental consulting services to the real estate sector.
"Of far greater concern are B- and C-class buildings, residential high-rises and institutional structures like schools. They do not generally have the maintenance budget big office towers have and, as a result, air quality can suffer."
Air quality is directly related to energy costs, he said. Heating, air conditioning and ventilation (HVAC) systems are usually a commercial building's largest expense item after taxes. As energy prices rise, landlords try to find ways to control or reduce those expenses.
Another factor is that, last year, single standards were abandoned for variable ones.
Since 1989, the accepted standard has been 20 cubic feet per person per minute for air circulation in all areas of commercial office towers. In 2004, the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers, which sets standards for both Canada and the United States, came out with dramatically reduced standards.
The goal, the society said, was to balance standards against need. Some rooms have uses that do not require large air flows. Today the standard for general office areas has dropped to 17 cubic feet a minute, general-class rooms need only 13 and board rooms only six.
"Heating and air conditioning costs mitigate against ventilation," Mr. Sterling said. "In spring and fall, you can let in more outside air without much extra cost, but in winter and summer you face the cost of either heating or cooling that air to keep tenants comfortable."
Air quality, he said, becomes a balancing act of comfort versus costs for half the year. It was the cost factor, which gave rise in the mid-1970s to what is known as "sick building syndrome": structures where air quality is so poor that tenants' employees suffer health consequences in increasing numbers.
"Before the energy crisis of the 1970s, when the price of oil shot through the roof, the standard for air circulation was about 20 cubic feet per person per square foot. When energy prices jumped, air circulation dropped to about six cubic feet as landlords moved to save money," he explained.
"That is where sick building syndrome starts. It took a while to figure out what caused it and what the impact was."
The cause is simply not enough fresh air to offset the carbon dioxide produced by tenants exhaling, coupled with the pollutants created by office equipment and even carpeting and furnishings.
The impact can be devastating indeed, he added, referring to a report prepared six years ago by the Lawrence Berkley Laboratory in Berkley, Calif., for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy. That report suggested sick buildings resulted in between $10-billion and $30-billion (U.S.) a year in increased health care costs.
"Landlords are again in a squeeze," he said. "Many buildings need more powerful ventilation but those systems cost a great deal to run."
Landlords large and small are not only aware of the problems but are increasingly acting to deal with them, said Deb Cross, executive vice-president of the Building Owners and Managers Association in Ottawa.
At the same time, many are reluctant to discuss air quality issues and declined requests for interviews.
BOMA has rolled out nationally an environmental program created by its British Columbia branch two years ago.
The two-stage program, called Go Green, starts with certification of buildings as environmentally friendly, including their treatment of air quality. The second stage, Go Green Comprehensive, allows building owners to benchmark their properties in relation to what similar buildings are doing.
Since this spring, BOMA has certified about 60 buildings in its Go Green Program while about 120 have been benchmarked.
"After that, it is up to individual building owners to take steps to improve performance," she says.
Allied Property REIT, which controls about two million square feet of office space in downtown Toronto, solved its air quality problems by putting design and control of HVAC systems directly in tenants' hands, Allied president Michael Emory said. "As a result, we haven't had even one air quality complaint in the past five years."
New construction also has a distinct advantage. At Bentall 5, an office tower in downtown Vancouver, Bentall Real Estate Services has taken advantage of the new standards and modern technology to solve the conflict between air quality and cost, said Jon Wellman, vice-president and general manager of Bentall 5.
The lower floors of what will be the 34-storey Bentall 5 tower were built three years ago. When the Vancouver office market collapsed, Bentall simply capped the lower 23 floors and leased them out. As the market eased, it began finishing the structure. As a result, Bentall has been able to introduce new technology at Bentall 5.
"HVAC systems are always costly, so we decided on a different approach," he said.
Instead of a single ventilation pipe leading from the core of the building to each floor, Bentall 5 has four. Those four, in turn, lead to sets of subsystems. This allows Bentall 5 to offer tenants 18 separate comfort zones on each floor, Mr. Wellman said. Each zone can be set by thermostat to a different temperature and different air circulation rates from the others.
"Tenants can better control their environment," he explained. "We can also draw more fresh air from the core and better control air quality as well."
The drawback with the Bentall 5 approach is cost. Retrofitting older buildings would involve about $28 a square foot, he says.
"HVAC systems usually have about 25 to 30 years of useful life. What landlords have to do is look at the state of their existing equipment and then plan major changes during the replacement period. In the meantime, all of us face challenges."
Expensive air
Estimated costs of poor indoor air quality in the United States.
Canada's are thought to be 10 to 20 per cent of those figures.
EFFECT ESTIMATED COST
Respiratory disease
$6-14-billion (U.S.)
Asthma and allergies
$2-4-billion
Sick building syndrome
$10-30-billion
Reduced worker performance (unrelated to health)
$20-160-billion
SOURCE: Lawrence Berkley Laboratory, Theodore Sterling Assoc.
