How to keep buildings healthy for occupants while ensuring that they save energy for owners will be the topic of a white paper being presented at an ASHRAE-sponsored conference next month.

“Indoor Air Quality in High-Performing Building Case Studies: A Wealth of Intent, A Dearth of Data,” written by Kevin Teichman, a senior science adviser at the U.S. Environment Protection Agency, is one of many papers that will be examined during the America Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers' IAQ 2013, Oct. 15-18 in Vancouver, British Columbia. More than 80 papers are to be presented at the indoor air quality convention.

“Neglecting indoor air quality while pursuing other goals can result in building environments that negatively impact the health, comfort and productivity of occupants and therefore defeat the overall goal of building design, including reduced costs,” Teichman said. “While building design is key to achieving a high-performing building, it is critically important to follow these good intentions through construction, commissioning, operation and maintenance. Only in this way will high-performing buildings actually perform as designed.”

Andrew Persily and Steve Emmerich, mechanical engineers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, also worked on the paper. A panel discussion with the authors is planned.

“While progress has been made in achieving sustainable, high-performance buildings, it is noteworthy that many discussions of green, high-performing and certainly net-zero energy buildings tend to focus on energy consumption,” Teichman said. “Energy is critically important, but is only one aspect of performance and should not be pursued to the neglect of the others.”

Registration is now open for the conference. For more details on planned speakers and presentations, visit www.ASHRAE.org/IAQ2013.