Sustainability Consulting: The Importance of Regular Air Quality Assessments
Are your employees experiencing headaches? Do you often hear complaints about how tired someone feels on the job? Are your employees struggling to concentrate?
If your answer to these questions were yes, you could have poor air quality in the workplace. Poor air quality can cause various unpleasant, sometimes even dangerous, health problems. Yet, there is a simple way to improve the air quality of your business.
The first step is to understand the importance of regular air quality assessments. Regular air quality assessments will help ensure that your employees’ air is safe. Let’s examine what an air quality assessment involves and why it matters.
What Does an Air Quality Assessment Involve?
An air quality assessment typically involves testing the levels of several common air pollutants. Pollutants like carbon dioxide, ozone, and nitrogen oxide can reduce air quality. Depending on the type of facility being assessed, other pollutants may be tested as well.
For example, a common warehouse air pollutant hydrocarbon. While in a manufacturing plant may experience air pollutants like mold.
During the assessment process, indoor and outdoor air samples are taken. This is needed to determine which pollutants are present. The pollutants found in high concentrations are noted.
The next step is creating a plan on how they can be safely removed or reduced. In addition to measuring pollutant levels, an assessment may include ventilation system inspections. There are also other measures to ensure that you meet all safety requirements.
Those measures may include performing air contaminant monitoring. You could also perform evaluations for volatile organic chemicals (VOCs).
The Benefits of Regular Air Quality Assessments
Regularly assessing the quality of the air in your workplace has numerous benefits. It helps protect both workers and visitors from exposure to hazardous pollutants.
Studies have shown that air pollutants can cause severe illnesses over time. This could expose your business to a lawsuit. Yet, you can avoid this with regular air quality assessments.
Another benefit of an air quality assessment is it helps reduce odors. Poor ventilation systems tend to cause a foul smell in the workplace. The cause is sometimes inadequate vent cleaning procedures.
The last thing you want is your business to have unpleasant working conditions. Testing your air quality often can help ensure a more pleasant work experience.
Finally, regular air quality assessments can save money. Conducting regular air quality assessments helps you identify problems in ventilation systems. If your system runs inefficiently, it can cost your business more money.
Replacing equipment due to wear-and-tear caused by poor maintenance can reduce energy costs.
How Often Should You Conduct an Air Quality Assessment?
Employers should conduct regular air quality assessments at least once every two years. This is a good practice to ensure that their workspace remains safe for their employees. Yet, it’s important to note that there are cases when you should test more often.
For instance, if new materials are being introduced into the workspace. You will want to conduct an air quality assessment every few months to a year. Another case requiring more frequent testing is if changes have been made to ventilation systems.
More frequent testing may be necessary on other equipment too. If it could affect air quality, you want to test it. You should also test the air quality more often if any workers report health issues or concerns.
Employers must take these concerns seriously. Taking immediate action by conducting an air quality assessment is critical.
What Can You Do to Improve Air Quality?
Besides conducting regular air quality assessments, there are several steps you can take to improve air quality.
One of the best ways to improve the indoor air quality of your business is to seek sustainability consulting. Sustainability consulting firms can offer an indoor air quality assessment.
They can also create a sustainability audit checklist to help your business focus on safety goals. Since auditing is one of the steps to ensure indoor air quality, this may be the best approach for your business.
Other steps to improve indoor air quality include regularly maintaining ventilation systems. Using HEPA-filtered vacuums when cleaning up dust or debris is another way to improve air quality.
You can also consider conducting a general facility air quality survey. Partnering with a company such as Phase Associates can help you continuously check indoor air conditions.
Keeping airborne pollutants from exceeding safe levels is how your business can improve its air quality.
Benefits of Sustainability Consulting
There are many benefits to working with a sustainability consultant. They can help you outline your goals to become more eco-focused. Creating an action plan for sustainable changes in your work environment is a step in the right direction.
They can also provide ongoing support. Sustainability consultants are there throughout the process of reducing health and safety challenges.
Hiring a sustainability consulting firm will give you access to years of experience. Firms like Phase Associates can be your trusted assessments sustainability, reporting consultant.
They will be able to provide you with solutions that will help you improve your indoor air quality. They have worked with other companies to achieve better air quality too.
The Importance of Regular Air Quality Assessments
A regular air quality assessment is essential for protecting employees. In any business setting, reducing potentially harmful airborne contaminants is a must.
Understanding the importance of regular air quality assessments is beneficial to your business. You want to ensure that your workplace meets all safety regulations. If you are concerned about the indoor air standards of your business, don’t worry!
Phase Associates can help. You can rest assured that everyone who enters your facility is safe from potential harm. Contact us today and improve your indoor air quality now! Our clients come from NJ, PA, NY, CT, DE, VA, GA and MD. We would love to add you to our long list of happy customers.