Topic: How clean is the air in your office?
An unassuming Canadian, he is widely regarded as a leading global expert on healthier buildings, and specifically, the quality of their interior air.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, he says he has seen requests for his services from around the world soar tenfold this year.
“Since Covid the rush for indoor air quality improvements has gone through the roof,” says Mr Wallis, who is also a practising architect.
Prior to coronavirus turning us into home workers, many of us worked in modern office buildings that don’t have windows that open.
Instead, the flow of fresh air is determined by a centrally controlled heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system.
As the Covid-19 vaccines continue to be rolled out in the months ahead, more and more of us are going to be returning to working in such offices in 2021, at least some of the time, whether we like it or not.
For firms and their employees, this means an increased focus on the HVAC system in their buildings, not just in terms of the virus that causes Covid-19, but the common cold and other airborne bugs that might be being blown around on the ventilation system’s jet streams.
Does your office building have any technologies in place to monitor and filter out these and other contaminants? And is enough fresh air being pulled into the building from outside?
“The more unknown something is, the scarier it gets, so air quality is like the monster in the closet,” says Mr Wallis, who is the founder of air quality monitoring business Reset.
“But the more you learn, the less scary it gets. Once you know what the problems are, you can apply the right solutions.”
Topic Discussed: How clean is the air in your office?