Occupants have spent more time than ever inside their homes during the pandemic. It’s therefore paramount that our indoor environments are fully supportive of our health and wellbeing. What does this mean in practice?

Please join The Green Register, The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products and natureplus for a topical live webinar on the importance of healthy buildings.

Natureplus is an eco-label, designed to pull the market, with its HQ in Germany. It sets exacting criteria for construction products and indoor health, requiring measured results from the lab, alongside criteria on embodied carbon. Tilmann Kramolisch, General Manager at natureplus will be speaking, alongside six other leading experts.

Our keynote speaker is Professor Stephen Holgate, CBE, FMedSci, Clinical Professor at the University of Southampton and special advisor for the Royal College of Physicians. He is lead author of The Inside Story: Health Effects of indoor air quality on children and young people and has been advising SAGE.

Launched to a fanfare in January 2020 (BBC1/Channel 5), The Inside Story brings together, for the first time, all the indoor air quality research and evidence; with recommendations to various sectors, including designers. It details products and source control and the team is now re-grouping and planning its next steps.

This event is the UK entry for natureplus fortnight, with a raft of events by natureplus representatives around Europe; including Germany, Austria, Holland, Italy, Switzerland and Belgium. Please see the ASBP and natureplus website for updates on this exciting fortnight of events.

Programme:

13:45: Online sign-in opens

14.00: Welcome from the event chairs: Simon Corbey, Director, ASBP and Lucy Pedler, Director, The Green Register and a welcome from key sponsor Neil Freshwater, Public Affairs Manager, Velux

14.10 Tilmann Kramolisch, General Manager, natureplus - An introduction to the European eco-label natureplus and welcome to the event series - ‘natureplus Europe - Healthy Buildings 2020’.

• Twenty years of natureplus. Who we are, where we are and how we work
• The criteria commission and how we set criteria
• An overview of the testing and certification process
• How to find information on the 600 products that have achieved certification

14.20 John Palmer, Research and Policy Director, Passivhaus Trust

• What is Passivhaus?
• What does Passivhaus deliver and how does it compare to ‘normal’
• Mythbusting…

14.40 John Jones, Managing Director, PPM Technology

• Measuring and monitoring indoor air quality
• Why is it important to measure indoor air quality?
• Our monitoring tools and methodologies

14.50 Tim Robinson, Director, Waverton Analytics

• Waverton Analytics provide and support IAQ Home and Commercial Survey tests in the UK and Europe. They have conducted some 8,000 tests to date.
• How does our kit work and what is the cost? What does the monitoring tell us?
• What is measured and why? – VOCS, formaldehyde and markers for mould 

15.00 - 15.10 Break

15.10 KEYNOTE: Professor Stephen Holgate, CBE, FMedSci, Clinical Professor at the University of Southampton and special advisor for the Royal College of Physicians 

• The Inside Story - Health Effects of indoor air quality on children and young people
• What are your recommendations to government? 
• How can designers and specifiers play their part?
• What are the next steps? Can we integrate indoor air quality into Part F of the Building Regulations?

15.35 Sani Dimitroulopoulou, Principal Environmental Public Health Scientist – Indoor Environments, Public Health England

• Indoor Air Quality Guidelines for selected VOCs in Indoor Spaces in the UK
• Poor indoor air quality can cause a variety of adverse health effects. 
• This statement focuses on Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and presents indoor air quality guideline values for selected VOCs, to control their levels in the indoor environment.

15.55 Debate/Q&A

16.25 Closing remarks

16.30 Virtual networking and drinks until 17.00

Bookings

£20 Members of The Green Register, ASBP, natureplus, PHT / £40 partners / £60 otherwise

*Partner organisations include: AECB, Building Performance Network, British Woodworking Federation, CIBSE, Fit for the Future, Good Homes Alliance, Passivhaus Trust, SEDA, STBA, TRADA, Woodknowledge Wales.