Air Quality Matters
Air Quality Matters inside our buildings and out.
This Podcast is about Indoor Air Quality, Outdoor Air Quality, Ventilation, and Health in our homes, workplaces, and education settings.
And we already have many of the tools we need to make a difference.
The conversations we have and how we share this knowledge is the key to our success.
We speak with the leaders at the heart of this sector about them and their work, innovation and where this is all going.
Air quality is the single most significant environmental risk we face to our health and wellbeing, and its impacts on us, our friends, our families, and society are profound.
From housing to the workplace, education to healthcare, the quality of the air we breathe matters.
Air Quality Matters
Air Quality Matters
#44 - Sotirios Papathanasiou: Establishing a Global Standard for Indoor Air Quality - Collaborative Efforts, Technological Challenges, and Environmental Impact
Ever wondered how a global standard for indoor air quality could change the way we live and work?
In this episode, we welcome Soterios Papathanassio, the driving force behind the Global Open Air Quality Standard (GoAQS).
We explore Soterios' vision to harmonize the scattered and often incomplete information on indoor air quality, a necessity as crucial as water and food. You'll gain insights on the collaborative journey involving academia and industry to create a universal standard that can be adopted worldwide.
We tackle the nitty-gritty of developing practical indoor air quality standards amidst technological and economic constraints. Discover the innovative two-tier approach that starts with basic monitoring of particulate pollution and carbon dioxide and progresses to encompass other pollutants like formaldehyde and ozone.
Sotirios - Linkedin
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Welcome back to Air Quality Matters, and I believe we already have the tools and knowledge we need to make a difference in our built environment, and the conversations we have and how we share what we know is the key to our success. I'm Simon Jones and this is Episode 44. Coming up a conversation with Sotirius Papathanassio on a new global air quality standard. In this episode, I have a very recent guest back on to discuss an exciting development on indoor air quality. For those of you that listened to episode 30, you might have caught something that was in the pipeline for Soterios. Well, fast forward a few months and we've got GoAQS a pitch for developing a global indoor air quality standard. So I couldn't wait to get Soterios back on the show to discuss this idea, the ideas behind the standard and some of the details and what's planned next.
Simon:If you're interested in how we raise standards and awareness of indoor air quality, this is not one to miss. Soterios has been a leading voice in air quality for years and he has assembled quite a group of people to contribute to this. Thanks for listening. As always, do check out the sponsors in the show notes and at airqualitymattersnet. This is a conversation with satirius papathanassio. It's great to have you back, satirius. Um, you're my first repeat guest actually on this podcast, so congratulations on that momentous occasion. If nothing else, thank you.
Sotirios:We only spoke a few months ago, as it were indeed, but I have some news and that's the reason you have me back right.
Simon:Um, yeah, absolutely, and you hinted at it, to be fair, in the podcast when we were last speaking, so we knew something was coming.
Sotirios:I gave a small hint, indeed, because I had a clear vision from from that moment that this is the direction that I should uh go and continue, basically.
Simon:So we're talking about listeners if yeah, so for listeners if they haven't heard, uh, you've launched a standard of sorts, um, and it's quite a big deal really, I think, in the air quality community. So over to you. Explain to me what this big idea has been about Soterios and where it stands at the moment. What is this?
Sotirios:Yes. So the standard. It's called Global Open Air Quality Standard or GOAQS standard or GoAQS, and it's eventually a tool that we would like to design in order to make life for everyone that is involved in the indoor air quality industry easier, like from the academia and also people that they actually do real work by inspecting buildings and monitoring different parameters. We believe that so far, what's happening out there with the air quality is so fragmented, and sometimes the information that it's shared is so complicated and sometimes even incomplete, where, after a lot of frustration, I realized that it was time to do something about it and stop with talking about it. It was time for action.
Sotirios:So I decided to resign and start in the development of the GoAQS by establishing some criterias, and once I had something in my hand that I could share, I started reaching people like yourself and asking what do you think about it? Do you see any value around it? And 99.9% of the people that I spoke, they really believed in the project and they agreed to support and contribute to any extent that they could, and I'm more grateful for that than anything. And right now we are in a moment where we still have conversations with lots of people from the academia and also companies that they are involved with the air quality are involved with the air quality. But soon this period is going to end and we will start with some voting processes in order to establish some specifics inside the standards. For example, what pollutants are we going to have, what are going to be the values around them for the different average limits that we suggest, etc.
Simon:Yeah, and it has to be said, soterios, a hell of a brave thing to do to take something that's so complex genuinely, and then try and get everybody globally to agree on what good looks like.
Simon:So, I mean you could say it's complete madness in one sense, but it's driven from this place of good. And that's this recognition that we're missing something here. Aren't we think, here aren't we as a global community of academics and industry and policy makers, that we don't have anything firm to lean on? And that seems to be the underlying thing here? Isn't there that it's very difficult for people to collect around something that's universally, universally understood to be a good thing, right? Is that fair to say?
Sotirios:yeah. So ar is as important for people as water and food, so it's time to take it seriously, okay, first of that. Uh, then there is the problem of you will find some standards out there regarding air quality. You will find some government standards based on the location that you are, or not In some cases, some governments they don't even want to share if they are working on establishing something like that. And then you have all of those green building certificates at the same time, which I think they are fantastic because they do help and offer some kind of evaluation of the importance to protect the occupants of the buildings, but at the same time, you see that they don't even agree with each other and they have different proposals on how to approach its parameter or air quality in general.
Sotirios:So GoAQS basically is it's a tool that I personally want to be adapted by all of those certificates out there. And then from governments, let's say so some people they have asked me are you going to approach ex-government to get behind the project and have it inside their regulation system? But for me it's very difficult to do that because of all those procedures that governments require in order to accept something like that. However, the project we're working on is going to be open and we are more than welcome. We can offer everything to a government if they see value to the project and take the information and later on adjust it to the needs of the different environments that they would like to protect. Let's say yeah.
Simon:So I mean to set the landscape for people a little bit, the challenge we have. If you're a manufacturer of a sensor or trying to develop a standard locally within your region or you're trying to develop a product to deal with air quality, you look out into the the wild of air quality standards and it's quite a messy picture currently, partly the nature and the complexity of air quality. Everybody will have their favorite pollutant, everybody will be concentrating on something or other, but it's very difficult to pin down what a good outcome is, even today, with all of these standards that are available from the WHO, from Well, from or from fit well, or bream or lead or like. The list goes on and on and on and on right, and that they're all sensible pitches at what we think air quality is, but it doesn't help, does it to? To no say it doesn't to pick your race, basically.
Sotirios:Yeah, air quality can become really complex really fast, especially in the indoor space. Yeah, like, for example I will give you an example Based on where you live, the metabolic rates of some of the pollutants inside the individual's body can have a different outcome from someone living in a tropical place and someone living in a cold place like, let's say, uk or Ireland. So even that parameter makes things very complicated. And then that was one of the reasons that I wanted to have scientists and academics from all around the globe and experts at the same time, in order for them to contribute from the different perspectives that they have on how we have to approach the subject of indoor air quality. And I want to make something like that, like an absolute number, an absolute value that is going to help everyone remediate indoor air pollution problems all around the globe. I don't think this is possible, but rather I think we are trying to create a tool in order to help people understand what's the direction they have to take in order to achieve better indoor air quality.
Sotirios:Yeah, it's a really good point yeah, and then if we see the technology that we have available, we will never get the absolute number either from the technology that we are going to employ in order to measure the different pollutants right In the everyday life at least. Maybe in the scientific world, with very precise and expensive instruments, you can have the absolute number, but in the real-world situation this is not possible. It's not possible to have $100,000 worth of equipment just to measure one parameter inside the building.
Simon:Yeah, and I think that's an interesting distinction that that, in a similar way, to reset in a way, you you build a standard around what's the art of the possible at the time, and that doesn't mean that that standard won't evolve as the art of the possible advances. But currently, realistically, our, our ability to measure the ongoing air quality that you breathe minutes a minute out to our day-to-day is limited with the technology we have available.
Sotirios:So there's a there's an element here of pragmatism as well right, it's technology plus the economics that get involved in this process, right? Like if we have to spend, like a million dollars inside the building just to measure with certainty what's happening, then it becomes very difficult for anyone to look what's happening in their indoor space and, you know, basically make their life better in the future yeah, so what's that led you to it at its at its basic level?
Simon:have you developed a standard here that will be applied universally across all buildings? Are there different levels here?
Sotirios:so yes, at the moment we propose like two tiers. We have the starter tier, where we only think that it's important to look what's happening on the particulate pollution and then also carbon dioxide. Those are very good pollutants to look because they can give you a broad understanding of what's happening inside the building. Co2 is a very good proxy for ventilation and also for the presence of other pathogens in the air and also other gases as well. So if you have very good ventilation so CO2 levels are low, then most likely you will have low concentrations of other pollutants as well. And PM it's the most common pollutant that we can measure nowadays. It's well studied by the scientific community as well and regulated at the same time.
Sotirios:So for the starter tier, we believe that those two parameters are enough, let's say, to understand what's happening in the building, and fairly inexpensive which is very important and then we have the ultimate version where there we have a list of more pollutants, like we have formaldehyde, ozone, carbon monoxide, and we also propose that it's time to see what's happening with the smaller particles, like 0.3 and 0.5 in diameter particles, which they are called submicron particles, because now we know that those particles they are not translated very well into pm 2.5 values and because also they can penetrate deeper in the human body so those are some of the parameters.
Sotirios:We are also exploring some others like radon and nitrogen dioxide, and we are working around it, but, yes, it's a process which, most likely, it's going to be started in two weeks time from now that we are recording this podcast.
Simon:From what I've seen of the standard as well, you're introducing timeframes, so mean exposure values within these pollutants, because pollutants will have different impacts over different timeframes for people. So you have taken it as far as saying you know what does an eight hour average of something look like, for example?
Sotirios:and the reason I did that is because I this is a totally new approach, okay, um. So basically, what I'm trying to do here is that link the different average of the different pollutants with the different environments. Let's say, for example, one hour average limit represents more environments where occupants require lots of air, so you have to be more precise and provide a lower limit, if you like, of pollutants there. So, for example, what's happening inside a gym? Occupants require lots of air because of the exercise and the metabolic rate of their bodies. They are increasing, so you have to be able to provide those occupants with better air, right Like in an office, where it represents the eight hours average limit, if you like, and there you can be a little bit more relaxed because occupants there they don't breathe the same amount of air like people inside the gym environment.
Sotirios:Yeah, so yes we have tried to link the different average limits with the different indoor environments.
Simon:And is this as a standard? I mean mean, we've talked about here things like gyms, um, is this a standard that you would imagine would change depending on the sector it would be applied to? So difference between residential and non-residential, for example, or office spaces versus um sports facilities or something is it? Do you imagine that this may zero in a little bit or focus into particular areas, or will it be the same across all sectors?
Sotirios:the numbers are going to be the same for everyone. But now, if you have, like, a fitness center and you would like to offer to your occupants or your clients the best they are possible, then you will have to look in the stricter value that is available for the specific time zone that represents your building Right. So yes, basically this is what we have in mind.
Simon:Yeah, and you had to start somewhere. Satirious like this isn't? You can only say we're going to develop a standard for so long and we're going to come up with the numbers at some point. You have to put your best pitch forward as to where you think this is going. Um, I mean, it's always a dangerous place to be because everybody's always got their favorite pollutant or something that they've been studying or looking at, or a product that measures something or so on. So it's never going to be right for everybody pleasing all of the people all of the time and all of that saying um, but we do know, certainly, that some pollutants cause significant harm and they're probably a good proxy for many other pollutants as well. So it by covering one, there's a good chance we'll be dealing mostly with that other one as well, um. So so, as you said, for the basic level, the entry level, you looked at CO2, which is fairly well understood both as a proxy for the performance of spaces and we also understand its limitations very well. At this stage it's been applied long enough. I mean, it's still misused and misunderstood, but as a gas, it's a good chance for us to understand metabolic pollution and risk in a space and ventilation effectiveness, um with it, with all of the usual caveats, before we get loads of people with their hair on fire about what it's not good for. You know we well understand that, um, and we can argue the toss over whether something's supposed to be 800 or 1000 or 750 or 1150. A number will be determined at some point.
Simon:But you've kind of set the bar at a well understood kind of number, haven't you? For CO2 of roughly under 1000. 850, I think it is, is good and kind of 850 to 50, 1400, 1500. That kind of region is. You probably want to start doing something about it. And above 1400, 1500, look, you really need to do something about it. It's very hard for people with, with all of the caveats that are well understood between you and I and our listeners, that they're bonkers numbers in some way. They're pretty well understood as a relatively good proxy. Um, the the big one. There is particulate matter, because there it's the first actual pollutant you're measuring, albeit still at 2.5. And again with all of the caveats of well, what about 0.1 and 0.3 and so on and so forth. Where did you come at the numbers for that? What was your starting point or reference for particulate matter?
Sotirios:point or reference for particulate matter. So first of all, let me make a statement here that I wish all of the pollutants were on zero zero micrograms per cubic meter for PM2.5, zero parts per million for carbon dioxide and zero for every other pollutant out there. But unfortunately this is not the reality, right, we cannot achieve or provide this kind of. Unfortunately, this is not the reality, right. We cannot achieve or provide this kind of numbers to anyone. And although WHO says that there is no safe level of air pollution exposure, we still have to put a number and work around it.
Sotirios:So I did the basics, like whatever other person that had to develop a standard out there did, which is see what's happening in a global scale from numbers and standards that we have out there. Did, which is see what's happening in a global scale from numbers, the standards that we have out there. So you put them on an Excel file and you try to compare them. If there is an agreement between all of those standards that you were able to find, then there is no need for you to go and change the number right. But after putting all of the numbers there, you see that this is not the case. Everyone has a different. There's no agreement.
Simon:Yeah, no agreement also.
Sotirios:So then you have to dive deeper and see what the scientific research is saying about the different levels of pollution, and then, once you have that, then you have to see if there is any feedback also from the industry, from people that are working for many years in the space and they have a very good understanding of what can we achieve or not inside the building, and then take all of these three parameters into consideration and come up with a number.
Simon:And it should be said that this isn't something you're doing in isolation. You're in conversation with, and we'll, we'll, we'll share links to the website in the podcast notes of course, and and anything else that this goes out on.
Simon:But you've got a considerable bank of expertise within the spectrum across academic, industrial and policy levels that have been feeding into some, you know, sanity checking some of these numbers you're coming up with. Um right, was there much movement in the pm thing? Were some of the things that you were suggesting was that this week and what were the kind of conversations you were having around that?
Sotirios:no, the problem is well we have had some conversations but we haven't touched the numbers yet because we are not in this process yet. It's going to come in two weeks. But there is some feedback. Like I had an old friend of mine that he was telling me that unless you put the number for PM2.5 in two micrograms per cubic meter, I won't participate. So you see that people have very strong opinion and my reply to him was like I accept every suggestion. It's not for me now to go and change the number, but I want you part of this development because you will have the opportunity to vote and say I want to and say let's see what the rest of the people out there suggest and recommend. Then, among everyone's vote, we will determine the final value for each individual pollutant.
Simon:Yeah, that's where it will get interesting, for sure. And you know, look, there are people that have that are, that are on the panel, certainly, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But, um, there are people on the broader panel of input here that you know have spent their life's work looking at, right, one or two of these pollutants. So, like, who are we to say that we're right and they're wrong? But they are part. You know, this is always the challenge, I think, with air quality is there's so much context here and we get so used to our world view of what good and bad looks look like. Um, we have to have this big mix of people in the conversation because it's there's no good me saying I want a level of x if I don't live in delhi, for example. You know what's the point of me having a, a level that I think is realistic to try and push people to as a good number, if somebody else is looking at that number and going are you joking me?
Sotirios:so yeah, uh. So we do have um people suggesting that we should see into other pollutants like radon and nitrogen dioxide, which for me, you know, I wish I can have as many pollutants as possible, but there is a limitation of how many things we can achieve in a certain amount of time as well, and of course, we will take everyone's opinion and suggesting to consideration. But at the end of the day, it's in community. We are going to decide what we're gonna implement inside the standard at this point. Maybe in the future we will have a version two where we will have more pollutants and we will have even stricter limits. But what's happening today? It's very important to consider, to have something today, because we need it.
Simon:Yeah, and you know somebody that I know and respect greatly, peter Rickerby, who's been involved in developing standards in the UK for years, not on air quality but more broadly across the built environment environment, has always said of these kind of consensus type approaches that the important thing is is that we get a flag in the ground somewhere, that this is an incremental process of starting somewhere, however imperfect that might be.
Simon:We can't let perfection be the enemy of the good. To steal a very famous WHO saying at recent times and this is about saying look, this is our best pitch. We understand that we'll never satisfy everybody all of the time, but from what I've seen, you know of these numbers here, and I think this is where we overcomplicate air quality quite a lot sometimes here, and I think this is where we over complicate air quality quite a lot sometimes. Regardless, regardless of the ifs and buts, we have a good idea of what's harmful from an air quality perspective and we have a good idea of the rough numbers that cause us harm. So there's nothing in what's been suggested so far that's offensive. From what I can see, these are just good first steps at saying, okay, here's a global number that we can put down and say look, this is what good looks like, or a risk looks like, or bad looks like, and start there, and I think that's the really important thing in this.
Sotirios:You know that this is an open and free project, basically that we are running at the moment, so everyone is contributing to this project in, let's say, a volunteer based, and I think this is very important at the same time, because it states that there is no bias here. We are all working into an effort to create better standards and better tools in order to actually have good indoor air quality, and we don't have agendas that is going to benefit the company, because I'm taking money from this company or whatever people have in mind. I'm dedicating 100% of my time right now to this project, for free, because I really believe it's time to do something and stop speaking about it.
Simon:Yeah, so if you were to project a few years forward, soterios, what do you hope this looks like as an entity, so as a thing of itself, or is that still to be determined to some degree? I mean, there's the work of, there's the work of trying to determine a standard, but a structure has got to govern this in some way. You've got to be able to take votes and agree or not agree, or make an ultimate decision. What does it, as a standard organization, look like for you? Do you think, or what's your hope?
Sotirios:So, as we welcome more and more people in this project, I don't know where it's going to go, because imagine WHO seeing a value of what we're doing and eventually absorbing us and say, hey, come on and let's work together and implement GoAQS inside WHO. So this is going to be the absolute perfect plan for me to happen. Personally, I don't like dealing with bureaucracy and paperwork and stuff like that and fundings and stuff like that. So I don't think I don't see for today, for now, us creating, let's say, a foundation or an association, but most likely this is going to be the future for what we are doing, unless someone bigger than us absorbs us and integrates us with what we already have if that makes sense.
Sotirios:Yeah, but and again, I don't think maybe this process is not going to happen from me, maybe someone else is going to take over and move the project even further from what I can do. I have I know certain things, but I have my limitations as well. Right, so I rely on other people in certain things and, um, and I think this is normal I'm not saying that I know everything and I can do anything.
Simon:Yeah, and who's this for? So if you're unclear exactly what it will be but that's the whole point Now's the time to get involved and help form that idea of what it should be Ultimately. Who does this benefit? You know, when we look at the landscape out there at the moment, we've kind of touched on it, but a good example is sensor manufacturers, or air quality monitor manufacturers probably a better or more precise way of describing them. At the moment, they're producing products and everywhere they sell their product, globally, there's a different standard to set a traffic light system to, or to set a threshold to, or so on, or to, you know, relate your dashboard to.
Sotirios:I guess the hope would be that it provides them with something that they can all lean on and set their products up to reference if they so choose so, yeah, this, this tool which I prefer calling like a tool rather than a standard sometimes, because eventually it's going to be used by those companies that build all of those monitors to educate the public, which is, you know, the most important part of the society, the majority of the people.
Sotirios:They do not know air quality, what it is, how it works, how we calculate things. So by us providing them a tool, a framework of providing information regarding air quality in the same way, no matter what product that the end user is going to have, I think it it's going to open up people's mind and it's going to make it more easy for them to understand what's happening with the air quality in different spaces. But also, this tool is going to be used by the scientific community. To be honest with you, I have had academics, professors from universities, emailing me and asking me what standards should they use for the indoor air quality study that I conducted, and now I don't know what thresholds should I use in order to determine if there was good or bad air quality inside the building. So you understand that it's not only the everyday people, but it's only the actual people that do science and they need that kind of information, sometimes in order to work.
Simon:Yeah, and I think at a very high level. I think most people can appreciate taking two or three broad air quality strokes and saying, right, if we're going to start somewhere CO2, particulate matter, I get that, but if I want to start looking under the hood and understanding the risks better you know things like product or source issues or combustion problems or particulate generation or ventilation performance very quickly you start wanting more ingredients in the mix and that's where you started to look at the ultimate um. And again, what's been reassuring for me particularly, as you know, particularly on this podcast as well we've had ben jones and max sherman of nottingham and lbnl looking at the harm of our indoor environment that the same pollutants keep popping up into conversations over and over again. And all of these pollutants there's you know there's probably a dozen um.
Simon:Nottingham and lbnl's work would argue there's five or six that cause the majority of the harm. But they're the same same suspects, the usual suspects, every single time, and it's been interesting to see that reflected in in your more advanced levels of world as well. So we've got ozone in there. We've got formaldehyde in there. We've got particulate matter in there, um, so we've got ozone in there, we've got formaldehyde in there. We've got particulate matter in there, um so we've got carbon monoxide in there, which is, you could argue, is a combustion related pollutants as well, so but you're not only starting yeah in recent years, we have understood that even humans produce carbon monoxide.
Sotirios:yeah, can affect as well agglomerations of people inside closed spaces. So that's one of the reasons that we decided to implement carbon monoxide as well. And, yes, we have formaldehyde ozone, carbon monoxide at the moment, and particulates and carbon dioxide as well, but we are looking also into radon and nitrogen dioxide. But we have some limitations with nitrogen dioxide and that's my main concern, which is the technology that we have available, especially in the low cost space. The low cost space and does not provide us with not exact numbers or very precise numbers. But even the complexity of the gas is very high and it changes forms over time and even sensors struggle to understand them. They try to throw some algorithms into the picture in order to make things a little bit easier, but at the same time, it's I haven't seen something.
Simon:um sure, let's say you know we can make that argument with ozone and formaldehyde as well. The moment we're into electrochemical sensors, we're starting to get into the grayer fringes of the capabilities of low cost sensors. So there are no perfect answers here and unless you're going to compliment these kind of values with spot checked kind of lab, grade tests there's no perfect here.
Simon:You know, even even pm 2.5 is a bit of a hit and miss in certain circumstances, particularly depending on certain sensors. So it's there's. No, there's no perfect here when it comes to monitoring.
Simon:So at some point when, when a number is set, that has to be done in the understanding, the reality of our capabilities of measuring doesn't it right like you understand the realities of this that not everybody is going to be happy with what makes it onto the list and what number that thing has on that list. It's a hard thing to get right, isn't it?
Sotirios:it is and, at the same, when I have conversation with that group of people that you mentioned, that maybe they have some kind of a product and they would like to have this kind of sensor technology inside the product in order to measure those specific pollutants, it comes to an end that I tell them that look, it's not like I'm against this kind of a sensor technology or this gas, like TVOC, for example, has come into the, this kind of a sensor technology or this gas like TVOC, for example, has come into the pieces lots of times.
Simon:I was going to ask you actually I'd imagine that's a common question is where's my TVOC value for this?
Sotirios:Yes, and I don't have like a vendetta against TVOCs. But the problem is that even the manufacturers that they build those sensors they haven't agreed upon them like of what gases do they measure with this tvsc sensing? Because when we say total volatile organic compounds we mean like a million or one million, like a thousand of gases that it's capable to be measured. But in reality most manufacturers they calibrate the sensors with one gas and then they approximate what's happening with other gases and they will give you an estimate of the total voc. Right, so one company may do it with another gas, like I don't know, hydrogen or carbon monoxide, and then they will try to make approximations of all the other gases that they may be present in the environment. So as long as those companies they don't come to a conclusion or an agreement that we should use the same type of gas for calibration, we should have this exact number every time we measure, then we cannot work in the standard development with TVOC. It's very difficult.
Simon:It's a really good point you make and I think that's the difference between the value of a sensor that helps drive a better outcome because it can help you identify events or help control a ventilation system, versus a tool or I know you don't like saying standard but something where you have to put pitch, a number, where you have to agree on something being good, bad or indifferent, and that's where a tvoc value is worse than useless and I'll be a little bit less political than perhaps you are with it is that it's a worse than useless value If you're trying to understand specifically what's causing you harm in a space, and that's not to take away from its value in a sensor in combination with other things to help get a better outcome. I'm not saying that and I think many companies have used tvoc sensors very well, that there are ventilation companies that use it as a marker to understand events in kitchens and sanitary accommodation and so on, very well and very effectively and it drives a better outcome than perhaps a pir sensor would do, because it's actually measuring odors, for example. So, as imperfect as tvocs are, um, it's almost impossible to use tvoc as a value and I think and that's that's a hangover, that's a hangover from regulations and history. We see it in our standards.
Simon:In the uk the building regulations still talk about 300 micrograms per meter cubed, and that that's not because that value causes a specific amount of harm. That was based on a broad set of assumptions that they did to calculate how much off-gassing there was likely to be from the surfaces in a dwelling so that you could achieve half an air change an hour. Um, it's not that that value meant anything particularly. It was just a number that you could lean on to calculate adequate ventilation. So, yeah, it's a really good example the TVOC one that others may have very different opinions on it, but as a standard it's very hard, I think, to lean on something like that.
Sotirios:Some companies, for example. They saw the problem and they tried to solve that by providing not a number in micrograms per cubic meter or parts per million, but rather with a level, an index.
Simon:Yeah.
Sotirios:So you will see some products that they have an index for the VOC in order to avoid this confusion. But at the same time, when we try to create a standard, it's very important to know what's hiding behind a number, specific number that we are proposing. Right, is it formaldehyde, or is it maybe alcohol or some other gas, that which may evaporate it into the environment?
Simon:yeah, I don't know if this is on video. There's a sensor behind me that I was, uh, posting on social media there the other evening because it was telling me off, because I had a midweek whiskey and it clearly picked up the ethanol in the room, shall we say, and was going red and flashing at me. But on the sensor output on the dashboard it was just the index, because that was. That particular sensor is based on sensorium sensors and they decided a while ago that they were going to come up. They were going to use an index, preferably to parts per billion or parts per million, because it was you just couldn't stand over, didn't mean anything. And, equally, the index doesn't really mean anything. It just meant something's going on in the room.
Simon:Was it particularly harmful? Yeah, it was probably killing some brain cells, no doubt, but you know that was a risk. I was willing to take midweek, that that particular week. So, like this is one of the challenges, isn't it, with this, is that you're trying to pitch a number and, again, air quality is a risk thing and, um, people's perception of risk and their tolerance for risk will be different at different times as well yeah, and you know, if you had teenagers or kids and you saw that you know voc is going up, then you may know that they are drinking, probably once you are outside the house and they are having a party.
Sotirios:That's a good way to use it. I will give you a real example that happened in my house. So I was out of my house for vacations and it was like Christmas and my sister-in-law decided to go inside my apartment and store there some gifts for her children, but she didn't communicate about that with me. But the instrument that I had inside the house start noticing there is a elevated level of vocs present, right, and I was like why now the vocs went up? Like I'm not there, I'm not doing anything, the house is closed. Why this spike of vocs there? So eventually I understood that because she placed some boxes with something inside the area of the sensor. The sensor picked up all those gases that may have gas from the glues of the packets and maybe the stickers and whatever they have there, and they tipped off me like someone went inside my house without me knowing yeah, which is a good example of the kind of the value it can give, without telling you exactly what the problem is.
Simon:Um, so look up, I think that I think this will be in, and I think it'll be really interesting to see how this discussion progresses, how these numbers are zeroed in on for the pollutants that get to be looked at. Um, perhaps you could describe to us structurally in your mind how that governance looks like at the moment. There are three principal tiers of involvement that, yes, they're not by invitation. It's by how much time you're you've got to contribute to this at the moment. But you've got three effective levels of involvement in the standard, haven't you?
Sotirios:Right. So basically we have the ambassadors, the expert advisory group and the main committee and basically we say, how much time do you have? And they say, I have zero time, but I believe in your project, so you should be in the ambassador, right? Then there are some people there that we really want them to have, like inside the expert advisor group, like professors from universities that they really know what they're talking about. So, of course. And then if they really believe that they have the time and the capacity, they're more than welcome as well to take part inside the main committee where we do daily-to-daily conversations about what to do, what to answer in this problem, how we should deal with this kind of conundrum and this and that. But basically, the main committee and the advisory experts, they have a vote as well. Equally, they can vote on the faith of the different propositions that we will do throughout the voting period.
Simon:And how many people in total at the moment between the committee and the advisory group do you think you've got that are contributing to this standard? I think we have like 70 people already.
Sotirios:Okay, yeah do you think you've got that are contributing to this stand? I think we have like 70 people already okay yeah, in total but.
Simon:I will have to count them again yeah, it was a big list the last time I looked at it. Um, and I think there is strength in numbers, um, both, indeed, I know it was the question that popped into my head. I mean, there are some boundary conditions. I mean, is there is there some barrier to nutters on this? I mean, what is the qualification for being contributing to this?
Simon:because because, ultimately, not all opinions are equal. You know and I understand the value in diversity, but there are equally some lunatics out there, um. So, like you're laughing because we know it's true, um, there are some limitations to your involvement in that. So, from a governance perspective, at some point you're gonna that, for transparency, that's gonna have to be written down as to who gets to play a part in that, and the numbers will help because it would dilute fringe positions to some degree. But I'm guessing at some point there's a limit as to who's involved in this?
Sotirios:Yes, so you need to have some kind of experience in the industry, right, involved in this? Yes, so you need to have some kind of experience in the industry, right? So otherwise, what's the point of you participating and what are you going to contribute if you have zero knowledge around air quality? And, yeah, that's the only criteria, basically. And people can jump up and down in the different levels that we have based on their availability over time, because we understand that maybe now you are involved because you have time, but maybe in three months you will have a kid and you know, the whole landscape of your life changes and you don't have the same availability like before, and we respect that and we understand that. Um, I have conversation with all individuals that they are in the group there because I had to speak with them and understand what exactly they can offer. In some cases, I will invite them myself because I knew their work. But since the public announcement, more people are reaching out and saying, hey, I think I can contribute to this new project.
Sotirios:So I do have a meeting with them and I get to know them and explain to them how the whole process works in order to see where they fit better inside the project.
Simon:Yeah, and do you start to see, I mean, obviously the bigger the numbers get, some serious thought is going to have to be put into how we take on board input, you know, do you see it becoming kind of an ASHRAE model where you have core committee members and then people that can anybody can contribute to the discussion but at some point it has to be voted on by core groups of people, or do you see it as a an overall vote? Will there be way? I guess there's a lot still to be discussed, depending on the size of this, how ultimately you arrive at a final or an interim even value on.
Sotirios:So um, I have given some thought on this, as we have people from all around the globe, let's say from the, from asia to the us. Um, you see that it's very difficult to organize meetings, uh, because of the time differences, the extreme time differences. So for this reason, I decided to have like voting processes that people globally will vote on specification of specific things but at the same time, if we know that the specific group of people are experts in, let's say, particular matter, I will work closer with them in order to develop some of the numbers that we have to have in place. If people have better experience in other kinds of pollutants, then I will work with this specific group and try to arrange everything inside the development of the standard.
Sotirios:But I don't think we will have um zoom meetings that people stay there for hours and they try to speak some people they try to speak for and take the time from others and have debates, endless debates of whether we should go or we shouldn't go, because at the end of the day, we have to give something to the public soon. I don don't want to create a standard in a two-year period. I want to create a standard in six months, let's say. I want people to have something in their hands soon, so for this reason, we will go through this voting process, which is going to be fast for everyone and it's not going to take much of their time, which is what most people struggle with. They are involved with so many projects and they don't have time to go and have those hour-long meetings trying to determine specific things inside the development of the standards.
Simon:Whether it's automated or it's transparent.
Sotirios:How it's automated at some point, if you take it out of a final arbiter um I, we will, we will uh public, we will make public every uh voting so people will be able to see uh the decision. It's not like, yeah, we're going to find the results, um, but yes, we will do the voting and then we will release the results to the public yeah, I mean it's really exciting and really going to be really fascinating to be involved in and to watch how it progresses.
Simon:But for listeners, what's your perception of timings here? You're saying in a couple of weeks you'll, you'll, you'll get to a point where you can open this up for formal discussions and vote in some description.
Sotirios:So those few weeks I've been having meetings like crazy every day with people that they wanted to learn more about it, but it comes to a point that it takes time for me from doing other stuff with the standard, like developing and involving the standard as it is. So I will pause, let's say, or I will decrease the amount of meetings I can have in a daily basis in order to create the voting questionnaire, if you like, and then I will start emailing everyone that is participating in like two weeks time, starting asking some of the fundamental questions, like, for example, I will give you one question is can we apply the standard for white and blue collar workers or is only for commercial space? Yeah, so I would like to get an opinion on that from the people that we have involved. Once we get answers from there, we will see what direction we take with the development and the numbers and how we approach every individual thing inside the standard.
Simon:And you've got a webinar coming up, I think on the 3rd of October. Actually, there's no point mentioning that on the podcast, because by the time I edit it and get it out, it would have happened. Yeah, forget that. So I mean, if people want to get involved in this and understand more closely, obviously we'll include links in the show notes and whatever, whatever other formats this goes out on um, but I take it you're still very much interested to speak to people or at the very least, have them express some interest in being involved, so serious yes, so they can go goaqsorg and there they can find all the information that we have available at the moment.
Sotirios:They can also provide feedback. They are more than they can also subscribe in order to get updates automatically and although we have a webinar coming up soon, we will have more in the near future as well and we do that because we want to answer questions in a more broad way and also get feedback at the same time easier from people, because sometimes people don't even have time to go and write any mail. So they are more than welcome to join and subscribe in order to get to know our different processes.
Simon:And from your understanding of the broad landscape of the air quality community. Are there regions or disciplines or silos that you would like to be more involved that currently are so? Occupational hygienists uh, more people from asia or or south america, or from certain academic institutions or disciplines. Are there any gaps that we could? Reach out or you'd like to see more involved.
Sotirios:That aren't at the moment. I would love to have people from Japan involved. For some reason, I think the language is a barrier for the Japanese culture and we haven't got any feedback from Japan yet. So, yes, if someone knows someone from there, please let them know about go us well, I tell you what's coming up.
Simon:Um, the week after next or is it crack? It might be next week even is the uh aivc conference, and I know we've got some board members from japan at that, so I'll I'll reach out to them on that one. Um, perfect, no, I, I understand it's, and it's very strong air quality community in japan as well, so there's a lot of expertise there that are worth fantastic I've tried to reach myself some professors from some universities there, but I didn't get any reply.
Sotirios:And I assume because I have asked other people's other people as well to help me in that process that the language. We write everything in English so far, but we want to make the standard available in many languages. But once it's ready, at the moment it's very difficult for us to go and translate all of those interiorizations that we do.
Simon:Yeah, and what about? Are there particular industries or anything? Have you got a fairly good mix of kind of you've obviously got the tech, you've obviously got the technology companies, you've got the standards people, you've got academia, quite heavily involved in this? What about some of the professionals like architects, engineers, occupational hygienists, HVAC, you know? I imagine there's a quite a broad mix of interested people.
Sotirios:Yes, last week I had many conversations with people that they're involved in the ventilation space and I'm waiting for them to give me feedback, as those big companies sometimes they have NDAs and they don't allow their employees to participate in those kind of standards, so I'm waiting for feedback from those industries. We do have epidemiologists, but I will be more than happy to have more epidemiologists into the picture. They are very important. Industrial hygienists we do have, but the more the better, in my opinion. What else we do have, but the more the better, in my opinion. What else? We do have architects or people that they professors that actually are from the UK and they're experts in the development of buildings and so on, so that's fantastic as well. I don't know if architects architects. They know lots of about air quality, so I I will reserve my invitation for them, but if they think that they know air quality, they are more than welcome to join.
Simon:Well, I mean, it's all about context, isn't it? And ultimately, if this part of the conversation is about indoor air quality, the people that create those spaces are a very important piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Whether they have a specific view on whether it should be nine or 12 micrograms per meter cubed or something is a different question, but they'll have an understanding about its application and its applicability in the built environment. So I think that that would be interesting.
Simon:Well, look like you say it's an open invite at the moment, so if people want to get in touch with you, there'll be details in the show notes. Obviously, I've been paying some attention from the beginning of this because we've had a few conversations. As I said, nothing is jumping out at me here as lunacy or offensive in what was being proposed and I see real value in the creation of something that everybody can lean on, even if they under, even if that's a standard or a tool that they can then understand how to reference more local standards and their values, or a local tool or a local piece of technology. It provides a reference that can sit in the middle of everything that people can use as a reference and a benchmark yeah, you, you're right, like some people, they think that they are local and they never travel.
Sotirios:So what's the point of having something in global scale? But I will give you an example, like from the UK. Actually, people, some schools, they got air purifiers that they were manufactured in China sorry, in India, and in India the threshold for PM 2.5 is 50 micrograms per cubic meter. So the purifiers that they got inside the schools will never turn on or will never speed up, let's say, in order to clean the air faster, once the level of PM surpasses a certain limit, unless it surpasses the 50 micrograms per cubic meter, which is quite high for European and UK standards, right? So you see right now where the Go AQS come into the picture by helping all of those companies that build the monitors and purifiers to have the same architecture, same tool, and they are able to sell their products all over the globe with the same standard that is designed to protect the occupants, no matter where they are.
Simon:Well, soterios, firstly, thank you for taking the time to come back and speak to me again. It'd be brilliant talking to you, as always. Anyway, thank you for taking time out of your life to try and do this. I think everybody that cares about better outcomes for air quality will applaud that effort, for no other reason than it's needed. So thank you for that, and it's up to everybody else now to get behind this and to have an input into it.
Simon:This is everybody's standard, so the onus is on everybody that has something of value to contribute. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Simon.
Sotirios:Thank you so much. I really appreciate your support and your podcast as well, I think, has helped lots of people, even myself, to learn some of the things out there with some of your participants, and it's it's our duty to do our best when we can right.
Simon:Yeah, absolutely, and this is a great tool to do that. So, tyrus, thanks a million Appreciate talking to you.
Sotirios:Have a great afternoon.
Simon:Thanks for listening. Before you go, can I ask a favour? If you enjoyed this podcast and know someone else who might be interested, do spread the word and let's keep building this community. This podcast was brought to you in partnership with 21 degrees, lindab, echo, ultra protect and imbiot all great companies who share the vision of the podcast and aren't here by accident. Your support of them helps their support of this show. Do check them out and at the links at airqualitymattersnet. See you next week.
