Adapting to the EPBD – Roadmap towards indoor environmental quality in energy-efficient buildings – Part 1

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Petra Vladykova

Member of the Swegon Air Academy Team

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The aim is to create buildings that are healthy, energy-efficient and sustainable – a combination that is much more challenging than achieving any one of these goals alone. While regulations set minimum health standards, the HVAC industry must go further, particularly in maintaining effective building ventilation over time.

The EPBD recast as an opportunity to promote buildings with high indoor environmental quality

IEQ has found its place in the EPBD and finally brought a balance between energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality. In the big picture, this legislative update also bridges a historical gap between energy efficiency and health.

Significant costs to poor IEQ, health and well-being

During a person's 79 years of life (EU average), 69 of those years are spent inside buildings, making them the new habitat, rather than the outdoors. People can live three weeks without food, three days without water, but only three minutes without air. Also, people eat 2 kilograms of food, drink 2 litres of water every day, but breathe 13,000 litres of air. That altogether, signifies how important the air in buildings really is.

There are well-documented arguments about the costs related to poor IEQ. Reduced work performance (with expected loss of up to 5%), increased absenteeism, reduced learning of children (with expected loss of up to 10-15%) are all cost related issues closely connected to a poor indoor climate. Not to mention poor sleep quality, which over time leads to reduced health and lowered cognitive performance.

Potentials for IEQ parameters and how to measure them

The EU Commission has delegated the responsibility to Member States to transpose and implement IEQ standards, including specific IEQ metrics, into national law by 2026, as competencies in building codes and health policy are retained at the national level.

There is a need for coordination among Member States to achieve the maximum benefits of IEQ, to monitor building use as well as IEQ parameters simultaneously. To help, there is a proposal for a model IEQ regulation aligned with the new provisions of the EPBD recast. This defines different IEQ parameters and specifies which building stage they should be measured at.

What potential IEQ metrics are there?

Today, discussions of IEQ primarily focus on carbon dioxide (CO2) and ventilation rate, but many other pollutants should also be considered. Especially since many others are already included in the WHO air quality guidelines, for instance nitrogen dioxide, benzene, PM2.5, formaldehyde, radon, ozone and carbon monoxide. 

There is no agreed IEQ rating scheme yet. The European Commission produced guidance on implementing IEQ requirements in EN 16798-1 (describing occupant expectations regarding IEQ through categories I to IV). The European framework for sustainable buildings – Level(s) – can also supplement the standard. Another example is two proposed ratings: TAIL for performance rating and IEQ Compass for assessment rating.

The challenges ahead are monitoring and documenting IEQ, because to successfully implement anything, it is necessary to understand how energy-efficient buildings respond to IEQ. There is a need for benchmarks and references, as well as for building a database to monitor buildings' performance, including compliance and maintenance. Further, to provide useful data for all building stakeholders, offer additional incentives to improve IEQ, control and reduce performance gaps and provide inputs for an economic view that leads to sustainable investments and technological advancements. This leads to increased public awareness and demonstrates the invisible aspects of building energy performance and indoor environment – helping ensure the safety, health and well-being of building occupants.

To sum up – IEQ in the EPBD

The prerequisite for a sustainable development is that IEQ is considered as important as energy performance, something the EPBD recast finally brings into balance. An optimal IEQ provides numerous benefits, some of which can be monetised while others can reduce the carbon footprint if there is a documented effect on healthcare. Monitoring is necessary to ensure proper automatic control, achieve high energy performance, and deliver optimal IEQ. Monitoring is necessary for success, and rating schemes such as TAIL, can be used for benchmarking, detecting indoor climate issues and needs in buildings, and ensuring excellent building performance. The EU Member States should collaborate when developing IEQ ratings to ensure consistency in parameters as well as these parameters levels, the same goes for energy classes.

Today, energy efficiency in buildings is addressed consistently. Similar consistency should be established for indoor environmental quality (IEQ).

Smart ventilation and energy efficiency: A Swedish perspective on possibilities and challenges

There is a vision to create a healthy, energy-efficient and sustainable indoor climate for everyone. Achieving one of these three is not an impossible task, but accomplishing all three at once is a significant challenge.

Common practise with inspections and maintenance for residential buildings in Sweden

It is common in Sweden to ensure good indoor air quality in buildings. Yet the country's residential stock shows that 78% of single-family houses and 50% of multi-family houses do not meet the public health agency's minimum air exchange rate of 0.5 air changes per hour. The Swedish building code requires a certain level of air exchange when designing buildings, however, this requirement is rarely met. 

Ventilation checks have been mandatory for multi-residential buildings in Sweden for several years. Inspections are based on design air-exchange rates which, if incorrect, can lead to poor indoor air quality.

In practice, good indoor climate performance depends on a strong maintenance organisation. Continuous care for a building is often driven by responsible property owners, rather than by government requirements, as many private building owners want to ensure their buildings remain safe and sustainable in the long term.

Proper maintenance is essential, but follow-up is currently time-consuming since municipalities handle the paperwork. The EPBD's centralised registry could improve oversight and ensure inspections lead to proper maintenance, which is a positive step in this regard.

Making sure people are not unhealthy is not the same as being healthy

Achieving the so-called good or acceptable indoor air quality is difficult for the industry to grasp, which is why Swedish associations have a critical role in clarifying the legislation and ensuring it is both understood and works in practice. The aim is to ensure people are not unhealthy, rather than merely healthy, and thus to implement categories II and III for indoor air quality in accordance with EN16798-1.

The EBPD recast provides few specific guiding values for ventilation. There is only a quantitative value stating a minimum of 0.35 l/s per square meter of floor area. However, recommended ventilation rates are usually higher, based on extract airflows. In Sweden, work environment authorities add to the above that workplaces should have 7 k/s of outdoor air per person, plus 0.35 l/s per m² of floor area, but this applies only when low-emission building materials are used.

The EPBD and Swedish building regulations may align, but there are issues with mainly listing a bare minimum, more like a design value. Thus, the Swedish associations now have to develop a recommendation on how to address and fulfil the EPBD recast – and add value to people's health.

To sum up the legislative insights on the EPBD from Sweden

Regulations in Sweden are always set at a minimum that surely avoid ill health, and the EPBD recast also introduces an absolute minimum. There is significant potential in the industry to provide recommendations to keep buildings energy-efficient and people healthy indoors. The EPBD is just one of the regulations, but Sweden also faces the taxonomy for sustainable financing and other incentives. Inspection and maintenance are key to keep the building systems working overtime.

Reference

This text is based on the webinar on 'EPBD unpacked - Why indoor climate and energy efficiency must be addressed together', hosted by Swegon Air Academy in November 2025. The experts were: Pawel Wargocki, Professor of Indoor Environmental Quality at the Technical University of Denmark; Andreas Martinsson Björkdahl, Technology and Environmental Manager at Swedish Ventilation Industry Association; Åsa Norén-Lundh, Business Development Manager at Swegon and Mikael Börjesson, Director Future Solutions & Public Affairs at Swegon.