Teaching Air Quality Without Creating Fear

Let's Talk Clean Air | Camfil

Building managers face a critical dilemma when implementing air quality monitoring systems: how to educate occupants about invisible health threats, without creating panic or overwhelming them with real-time data alerts.

This episode explores practical ways for effective air quality communication, including customizable notification systems that adapt to different comfort levels and gamification approaches that engage rather than frighten. We cover the science behind particulate matter, debunks common myths about building immunity to pollutants, and introduce the groundbreaking Global Open Air Quality Standards (GO AQS) initiative.

Our guest Sotirios Papathanasiou is a world-leading air quality expert, author of the "See the Air" blog, and spearheads the GO AQS project involving 150 global experts. He has over a decade of experience helping organizations implement practical air quality monitoring solutions without overwhelming building occupants.

THINGS WE SPOKE ABOUT

● Impact of Covid-19 on air quality awareness

● Educating the public without fear

● Myths about particulate matter and CO2 as a pollutant

● Need for Global Open Air Quality Standards

● The challenges of setting standards

● Air Quality as a human right

GUEST DETAILS

Sotirios Papathanasiou is an air quality expert with substantial experience in the field of environmental issues but particularly indoor air pollution. His is the author of three books on air pollution, for adults and kids as well as curate a popular web blog ‘See the Air’. He has a special interest in IoT devices for personal AQM/low-cost sensors and has been researching how start-ups rise and fall in this sector.

http://goaqs.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sotirios-papathanasiou/

MORE INFORMATION

There is also a wealth of industry information on air quality and how to improve it on our website at camfil.com
Let’s Talk Clean Air is produced for Camfil by DustPod.io

QUOTES

Once you fix indoor air quality, you fix all the other problems like Covid or any others transmissible from airborne particles in the environment.
- Sotirios Papathanasiou

We do find different ways to educate people and reach out to their lives without creating that fear by for example enabling gamification through specific apps. They can teach you about air quality but at the same time keep you engaged to learn more and start taking the right decisions
- Sotirios Papathanasiou

Size matters. PM 2.5 is a very well-studied pollutant, so it's very well linked with health outcomes. We understand better when we see a value that is related to mass.
- Sotirios Papathanasiou
KEYWORDS

#airquality #globalstandards #indoorairquality #IAQ #airqualityeducation #airqualitystandards