Balancing air quality and energy efficiency of buildings: Dexus and CBRE execs

Managing the conflict of interest between indoor air quality and energy efficiency of buildings is a balancing act according to Jon Clarke, head of smart building technology at real estate investment trust, Dexus.

Clarke spoke on a panel at the Honeywell User Group (HUG) conference in Sydney today and told audiences that the dynamic of building operations has critically changed in the wake of widespread bushfires and the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In the 2019 bushfires, we had the best filtering that we could possibly get without impacting on the performance of the air conditioning. It was a much better indoor environment than it was outdoors. Sydney was pretty much a smog,” said Clarke.

“Then the pandemic kicked in and that was a very similar approach. What can we do to go over and above air purification of the buildings, beyond the filtering?”

Ensuring that improvements to air quality and air purification do not come at the expense of sustainable practices is an issue that requires a reimagining of building design going forward, he said.

According to panellist Su-Fern Tan, head of ESG, at commercial real estate services company CBRE, buildings need to be responsive by design, to changing occupancy levels, which will impact both air quality and energy efficiency.

While the pandemic saw a 90 percent drop in building occupancy, same drop did not occur in the energy consumption of buildings she said.

“We didn't see a fall or rise in NABERs rates. So that means that our buildings are not very responsive to what's actually happening inside,” said Tan.

“There's still some fine-tuning that needs to be done in order to balance the healthy aspects of the green building with the energy efficiency.”

Dexus’ Clarke pointed out that building designs have largely not changed in the last 30 years, and new approaches are critical in responding to this challenge.

“We can't just repeat the designs of yesterday, we have to really rethink what the design of tomorrow look like where buildings can turn down, and they can maybe have different types of sensing for different environments. So, the copy and paste specifications of today have to be removed,” he said.