Building in Health to Advance Building Wellbeing
Generally around the world, as much as 60% of our time is expended at home during the day and that’s not even making an allowance for the one-third of our time devoted to sleeping at night. With this amount of time spent residing at home, it is not surprising that people are progressively becoming concerned about how healthy their living accommodation is.
Levels of pollution within buildings in many locations globally, including in some residential buildings, are frequently greater than levels recorded outside. In many situations, evaluations done to assess indoor levels of radon, environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and lead have substantiated that health and safety risks are significant. Not only this, thousands of chemical and biological pollutants can be found to be present indoors, many of which are known to have a considerable health impact on people.
When looking to improve residential building health, there are many ways this can be accomplished, but nine principal areas that can be observed, addressed and improved upon are:
- Air conditioning and ventilation
- Air quality
- Temperature and humidity
- Damp and fungus
- Dust, grime and pests
- Water quality
- Noise pollution
- Lighting and views
- Safety and security
For the purposes of this report, to be classified as a certified healthy residential building, a property has to satisfy certain conditions:
- Evidence of a healthy building certification, and/or
- Has integrated a healthy building-related standard/scheme/technology
Knowledge of the importance of living in a healthy residential dwelling is increasing in China. Nearly a decade back, as affirmed by a market survey by Fang.com on the awareness of healthy housing, it can be seen that only about 24% of consumer respondents were acquainted with the notion of healthy housing. Moreover, as per a recent survey by Baixing Finance & Economics, over 70% of respondents plan to improve their living environment and the health level of their home by either modifying their existing home, buying a new house or renting a better one.
This report begins by focusing on the importance of healthy residential buildings, before looking at the healthy residential housing market in China.
