Proposed Research Agenda for Achieving Indoor Air Quality Supporting Health and Comfort in Highly Energy Efficient Buildings

Research topics that need to be addressed so that the future highly energy efficient buildings do not compromise health and comfort of the building occupants were identified. They can be used to form the short-term and long–term research agenda. Research priorities were identified during two workshops. During first workshop, the stakeholders involved in the building design, construction and operation, and invited experts from different disciplines formed the first list of the priorities. The list was subjected to public review and supplemented in the subsequent workshop held during large international congress. The impact of user behavior with respect to control of the indoor environmental quality was the topic that received distinctively higher priority than the other topics. It was also highly advised to benchmark differences in health risks, exposures and sources of these exposures in the traditional buildings, energy retrofitted buildings and new highly energy-efficient buildings. Many other research topics identified received quite similar priority; the effort needed to accomplish the research work was estimated. Developing data bases with benchmarking results and information on past and current projects was seen as an important task for the future. The research agenda includes also developing policies and training courses, which have been considered as an important step to promote highly efficient energy buildings with high indoor environmental quality. Crosscutting and harmonization of different policies needs to be promoted in that process.