ATLANTA — ASHRAE announced a call for abstracts for IAQ 2013, “Environmental Health in Low-Energy Buildings.” The conference will examine IAQ, thermal comfort, source control, air cleaning, ventilation, exposure, and related environmental health concerns associated with low energy building design, construction, retrofit and operation.

The conference will occur Oct. 15-18, 2013, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and is co-organized by the International Society of Indoor Air Quality (ISIAQ). It will be the 17th in the ASHRAE IAQ conference series.

“Besides addressing thermal comfort and other IEQ issues, buildings and other enclosed spaces are increasingly challenged to provide a healthy environment while focused on minimizing energy use intensity,” said Steve Emmerich, conference co-chair.

“The complex relationship between indoor and outdoor environmental conditions, coupled with the impacts of climate change, requires a paradigm shift towards creating buildings that are not only comfortable but also healthy for the occupants while minimizing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions,” said Hal Levin, co-chair.

Levin noted that increasing energy consumption is only one way to achieve the goal of improved IAQ and thermal comfort. It can also be achieved without significant increase or even with decreased energy consumption. However, the current focus on energy efficiency often results in insufficient consideration of the environmental health impacts of reduced energy efficiency use in buildings.

IAQ 2013 will review the state of knowledge of the balance of environmental health and energy efficiency in buildings and help define future education, policy, and research directions. The roles of building, HVAC, and passive system design and operation for achieving good environmental health in low energy buildings (both new and retrofit) are the core themes of this conference. For more information, visit www.ashrae.org/iaq2013.

Publication date: 11/19/2012