Combining Energy Performance and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) in Buildings : A Systematic Review on Common IEQ Guidelines and Energy Codes in North America
department or school: Applied Science, Faculty of
department or school: Non UBC
department or school: Engineering, School of (Okanagan)
data provider: DSpace
identifier citation: Energies 18 (7): 1740 (2025)
creator: Perera, Ishanka
creator: Hewage, Kasun
creator: Rana, Anber
creator: Sadiq, Rehan
issued: 2025-05-09T16:08:24Z
issued: 2025-03-31
description: The indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in buildings is vital for health, work efficiency, productivity, and the overall sustainability of buildings. IEQ is governed by four parameters: indoor air quality and thermal, acoustic, and visual comfort. The recent pandemic has compelled people to think beyond energy efficiency and refocus on the health, well-being, and productivity of building occupants. Despite numerous IEQ guidelines and standards, there remains a paucity of systematic research that critically examines the relationship between IEQ and building energy efficiency. This systematic review explores the existing equilibrium and identifies gaps between IEQ standards and building energy codes. Firstly, this review examined the status of the IEQ standards and identified that most of the North American IEQ guidelines cannot achieve energy efficiency targets. Secondly, existing building energy codes were reviewed to determine how well these codes fare with IEQ requirements. It was revealed that the expensive energy certification documents are more focused on IEQ than traditional energy codes. The identified factors indicate that most building energy codes can meet only indoor air quality thresholds (a subset of IEQ), while other parameters are inadequately addressed. This review revealed 19 relationships between IEQs and energy efficiency. Building energy code/IEQ guidelines developers could consider the identified 19 relationships to develop a combined set of guidelines/standards for future building stock. An integration model between IEQ and energy efficiency is proposed as a future research direction to contribute to the better design and construction of modern buildings. The findings will facilitate the construction of healthy and sustainable buildings, and they aim to generate new residential communities that achieve an optimal health–energy–carbon nexus.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/91081
note: Academic Editors: Piero Bevilacqua,Cynthia Cruickshank and MiroslavCˇekonReceived: 6 February 2025Revised: 23 March 2025Accepted: 25 March 2025Published: 31 March 2025Citation: Perera, I.; Hewage, K.;Rana, A.; Sadiq, R. Combining EnergyPerformance and IndoorEnvironmental Quality (IEQ) inBuildings: A Systematic Review onCommon IEQ Guidelines and EnergyCodes in North America. Energies2025, 18, 1740. https://doi.org/10.3390/en18071740Copyright: © 2025 by the authors.Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This article is an open access articledistributed under the terms andconditions of the Creative CommonsAttribution (CC BY) license(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Systematic ReviewCombining Energy Performance and Indoor EnvironmentalQuality (IEQ) in Buildings: A Systematic Review on CommonIEQ Guidelines and Energy Codes in North AmericaIshanka Perera 1 , Kasun Hewage 1,*, Anber Rana 2 and Rehan Sadiq 11 School of Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus, 3333 University Way,Kelowna, BC V1V 1V7, Canada; ishankas@student.ubc.ca (I.P.); rehan.sadiq@ubc.ca (R.S.)2 College of Built Environments, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA; anber.rana@alumni.ubc.ca* Correspondence: kasun.hewage@ubc.caAbstract: The indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in buildings is vital for health, workefficiency, productivity, and the overall sustainability of buildings. IEQ is governed byfour parameters: indoor air quality and thermal, acoustic, and visual comfort. The recentpandemic has compelled people to think beyond energy efficiency and refocus on the health,well-being, and productivity of building occupants. Despite numerous IEQ guidelinesand standards, there remains a paucity of systematic research that critically examines therelationship between IEQ and building energy efficiency. This systematic review exploresthe existing equilibrium and identifies gaps between IEQ standards and building energycodes. Firstly, this review examined the status o…
has type: Article
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0448834
language: eng
peer review status: Reviewed
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
publisher DOI: 10.3390/en18071740
rights: CC BY 4.0
rights URI: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
scholar level: Faculty
scholar level: Researcher
subject: indoor environmental quality (IEQ)
subject: thermal comfort
subject: indoor air quality (IAQ)
subject: acoustic comfort
subject: visual comfort
subject: building energy efficiency
subject: green building standards
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/91081