The Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released new guidance, “Energy Savings Plus Health: Indoor Air Quality Guidelines for School Building Upgrades”, to help school districts protect indoor air quality while increasing energy efficiency during school renovations.
“This guidance provides common-sense solutions for improving energy efficiency and indoor air quality in schools across the country,” says Janet McCabe, acting assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation. “By using these guidelines, school districts can cut their energy bills and help ensure students have a healthy and safe learning environment.”
Renovation and construction activities can create dust, introduce new contaminants and contaminant pathways, create or aggravate moisture problems, and result in inadequate ventilation in occupied spaces. EPA’s guidance offers opportunities to prevent and control potentially harmful conditions during school renovations.
The new guidance builds on EPA’s existing programs, such as ENERGY STAR for schools and Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools, which help schools identify, resolve and prevent air-quality problems, often with low- and no-cost measures.
Today, half of U.S. schools have adopted IAQ management plans, the majority of which are based on EPA’s Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools. However, there are still about 25 million children in nearly 60,000 schools who are not yet protected by IAQ management programs.
Visit www.epa.gov/iaq/schools/energy_savings_plus_health.html to download
the new guidance and www.epa.gov/schools for other valuable school environmental health resources.