Healthy Building Policy Summit Points to Sustainable Future

11/1/2024

Chances are you didn’t attend the Healthy Building Policy Summit in Washington D.C., in September. Only 250 or so people were at the one-day event, which focused on capturing the energy surrounding the debate on healthy facilities and turning it into policies that actually protect the health of people. (I attended representing FacilitiesNet.com, a media sponsor.) 

But your absence doesn’t mean you won’t feel the effects of the event. Given the passion of the participants and the array of initiatives and ideas they generated, it seems likely that people will point to the summit as a galvanizing event thatreshaped maintenance and engineering management and propelled the healthy building movement. 

Consider the summit’s players. Hosted by the International WELL Building Institute at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, the summit featured presenters from the U.S. Green Building Council, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. General Services Administration, 21st Century Schools Fund, and Business Council for Sustainable Energy, to name just a few. 

From these presenters came an overwhelming flood of insights and ideas related to indoor air quality, water quality, universal design, circadian lighting, LEED, deferred maintenance, ESG, return to office, resilience, climate change, STEM, healthcare-associated infections, decarbonization and electrification, among them. 

Will policy makers tap into the summit’s energy and make buildings healthier for all? One likely test is the fate of the proposed Indoor Air Quality and Healthy Schools Act. The bill aims to kickstart broader healthy building actions by improving IAQ in the nation’s schools to protect children. Rep. Paul Tonko, a New York Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, told summit attendees, “It’s important for us, as we develop policies and provide a vision for this country, that we do it through the eyes of our children.” 

Watch these pages for actions and events that result from the Healthy Building Policy Summit. Maintenance and engineering managers are likely to feel its impact for years to come. 

Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.