The launch of BS 40102-1 - Indoor environmental quality by the national standards body has been devised as an entirely new standard that outlines recommendations for measuring and evaluating the impacts of air and light quality on health and wellness and the introduction of improvements.

The 2022 revision is cited as a method that can be used to meet the new requirement for large new non-domestic buildings to produce an energy forecast as stipulated in the latest revision to Approved Document L, effective from 15 June 2022.

One of the main aims for the new publication is to align the BSI standards with the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) air quality guidelines, published in 2021. Guidelines that the UK Government has not yet adopted, although the Environmental Audit Committee has launched a new inquiry considering both outdoor and indoor air quality targets which could influence further change – more on this later.

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A recent survey of heads of property and facilities at 101 UK public and private sector organisations has uncovered misunderstanding of the scale of the UK’s retrofit problem.

Over a third of businesses said they believed that 39% or less of the UK’s current building stock will still be in use by 2050, whereas in reality it will be nearer to 70%, according to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

Retrofitting to improve energy efficiency was seen as a low priority for 86% of building managers, according to the report, and 23% of the people managing buildings in the largest companies had not been involved in any form of net zero planning, showing that many businesses are just kicking the can down the road.

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The CCTV footage shows an e-bike battery explode in the hallway of a block of flats after it goes into thermal runaway. Starting with a toxic smell the battery quickly produces a white and grey highly flammable and toxic vapour cloud into the air, which then ignites into a fireball. This highlights a new fire risk for flats and commercial buildings where electric bikes and scooters are stored inside the building.

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BT plans to move all UK phone lines from the traditional Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to a fully digital network in 2025. Although BT announced the Big Switch Off in 2015, the survey found that 44.8 per cent of businesses are not aware of the plan to phase out landlines. And it’s not just landlines that will be affected as non-voice services connected to the PSTN and ISDN such as CCTV, alarms, faxes, EPOS machines and door entry systems will also be turned off.

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The Government has set targets to improve air quality for England, but are they enough to make a change significant enough to stop avoidable deaths and health problems and halt the decline of our biodiversity. Poor air quality is a major driver of biodiversity decline across the UK, with levels of ammonia being exceeded in 93.5% of Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) in England.

The new inquiry will focus on both outdoor and indoor air quality and will examine whether the targets currently established are sufficient to tackle the UK’s air quality challenge.

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