How can buildings enhance the well-being of their occupants? The developing field of healthy buildings looks at impacts of the built environment on the health and well-being of building occupants. This introductory training provides an overview of the Federal Energy Management Program's (FEMP) Healthy Buildings Initiative (HBI). HBI investigates the intersection of energy efficiency and occupant productivity and satisfaction.
The program encompasses a wide range of indoor environmental quality factors that promote human health and influence energy efficiency such as lighting, thermal comfort, and indoor air quality. In this training, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory will also demonstrate the capabilities of the Healthy Buildings Analytical Support Tool—an analytical decision support tool for integrating energy measures with IEQ and occupant health in office buildings—including the required data inputs and the results. The training will include an example with data collected from a pilot study and an interpretation of the results.
Instructors
Kevin Keene, Researcher, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Read Bio
Kevin Keene is the Principal Investigator/Researcher of the Healthy Building Initiative project at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and is a key contributor to Federal Energy Management Program's healthy building resources and products. Kevin received his master's degree from Stanford University in Sustainable Design and Construction, focusing on energy and urban systems and high-performing building science. Kevin is also in the Building and Connected Systems group with a background in civil engineering, energy, and sustainable urban systems. At PNNL, he specializes in energy and water systems, occupant health and well-being, urban-scale modeling and analytics, and resilience and performance evaluation. Kevin works on providing research and tools that facilitate the adoption of integrated building upgrades and solutions.
Eric Mets, Building Research Engineer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Read Bio
Eric Mets joined BCS in 2019 as a building research engineer on the Building Performance Evaluation team. His focus is to improve the energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and resiliency of buildings through a holistic approach. He spent the previous seven years handling the technical aspects of energy and sustainability at a boutique consulting firm in New York City, developing the ability to zoom in on challenging details and zoom out to advise on big-picture issues. This included a focus on bringing implementable solutions to developers, building operators, and corporations with the most ambitious goals and challenging projects.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this training, attendees will be able to:
- Identify how improving occupant health can be an important organizational goal;
- Recognize what the Healthy Buildings Analytical Support Tool can provide users;
- Interpret the results of the Healthy Buildings Analytical Support Tool; and
- Identify the available FEMP resources for learning about healthy building concepts.
