With indoor environmental quality (IEQ) rapidly becoming a key factor in retaining and attracting tenants, maintaining, and even improving, good IEQ including indoor air quality is no longer an option of good business practice. It’s essential.

• Most Americans today spending up to 90 percent of their time indoors.
• According to the Building Owners and Managers Association and the International Facility Management Association, HVAC, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality rank among the top five leading tenant complaints.
• IEQ affects worker productivity. Landmark studies conducted by the Environment Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have found that improved indoor air significantly reduces illness and has a positive impact on worker productivity. Researchers estimate that workers' performance would increase between 0.5 percent and 5 percent due to improved indoor air quality.

Owners and building managers who successfully resolve, or forestall, issues related to these areas will help improve worker productivity, tenant satisfaction, and occupancy rates.

Good environmental quality improves marketability

As the economy strengthens in the northeast, many companies are assessing their space needs. Business tenants, however, still are in the driver’s seat due to relatively high vacancy rates. They’re looking for the best deal they can get.

At the same time, many business and economic experts believe that once the economy gets going in earnest, many employees will switch jobs. Many will be searching for employers who, among other things, offer a healthy work environment.

As a result, landlords and facility managers who maintain good indoor environmental quality — and demonstrate that they do — will be in a better position to compete for quality tenants. Providing a healthy building will also strengthen owners’ negotiating position when finalizing leasing arrangements.

IEQ management can help reduce legal liability

The healthy building movement is growing in tandem with increased awareness of the effects of workplace conditions on tenants’ health. This, in turn, has important implications for building owners and landlords.

Because tenants and employees are more willing to engage in litigation relating to the building environment, building managers and owners who can show they pro-actively maintain their facilities to keep them healthy are in a better position to defend against such lawsuits.

Routine inspection of HVAC systems is one of the most cost-effective ways to maintain indoor air quality — and is essential to confirm that they are functioning properly. Thorough documentation is equally important, not only to help maintain the building, but also to demonstrate conscientious care if the issues arises in future potential litigation.

IEQ management helps control mold growth

While concern about mold growth inside buildings and its removal has grown dramatically in recent years, there is nothing really new about mold. Mold is all around us. Therefore, when mold is discovered growing inside a building, it is not automatically a crisis. Quite often, mold is a relatively minor problem and can be handled by facility maintenance staff.

One of the most common misperceptions about mold — which is helping to fuel mold removal services that are built more on fiction than fact — is that mold causes sick building syndrome. While, in some circumstances, mold has been linked to sick building syndrome, currently mold is not thought to be a major contributor to this global problem.

Proper IEQ maintenance strategies can go a long way to preventing mold problems. Regular inspection of HVAC systems, and prompt attention to minor issues, is highly cost-effective.

Pro-active communication is key to IEQ management

Because IAQ is a health matter, tenants and others using your facility need assurance that building managers and owners are on top of any IAQ questions that may arise. Therefore, your success in handling those issues has as much to do with what you do as how you do it.

A well developed IAQ program will go far to minimize concern and possible confusion by helping to prevent problems. It also lets you respond quickly and sympathetically. The following approaches will help you respond in an effective manner:

• Respond quickly. Delaying response may be interpreted as a lack of concern on your part.
• Respond empathetically. Listen, be understanding, and show compassion. Making an effort to understand in order to evaluate the situation, and then fully explaining your actions, will go a long way to prevent or defuse emotional responses on the part of tenants and others.
• Keep everyone informed. This is the best way to prevent rumors. Since IAQ issues are health issues, the potential for rumors is greater than in other situations. Err on the side of providing too much information rather than too little.
• Document what you learn and the actions you take. Review these with the people involved. This approach not only creates a record, but also gets people to focus on the facts. Having people sign the document may sometimes be important, depending on the situation at hand.
• Be in charge. People respond well to someone who listens and who communicates with them. It's up to you to show that you are managing the situation with their best interests in mind.