Editorial: Sustainable, Healthy Buildings & Communities

TY - JOUR

T1 - Editorial

T2 - Sustainable, Healthy Buildings & Communities

AU - Phelan, Patrick

AU - Wang, Nora

AU - Hu, Ming

AU - Roberts, Jennifer D.

N1 - Funding Information: The interplay between building energy efficiency, or more generally, building sustainability, and the health and productivity of the building occupants has not received as much attention. A heightened awareness of such interconnections was one of the outcomes of a U.S. Department of Energy funded project called Buildings of the Future [ 6–8 ]. Buildings of the Future convened numerous stakeholders via webinars, panel discussions, and workshops. It was recognized that these two research communities—sustainable buildings (including building energy efficiency) and indoor public health—were not often found at the same research conferences. Indeed, opportunities for professional collaborations between these two communities were notably lacking. Somewhat fortuitously, the two primary organizers of the Buildings of the Future project were invited to join a group led by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) called the Health in Buildings Roundtable (HIBR) [ 9 ], who at that time were beginning to organize a workshop around a similar theme. This workshop on Health in Buildings for Today and Tomorrow: Making Connections , which followed previous smaller efforts at NIH, was held in June 2018 at the NIH Natcher Conference Center in Bethesda, Maryland. This two-day workshop consisted of plenary presentations, panel discussions, and breakout sessions to explore future research directions at the interface between building sustainability and indoor public health. The National Science Foundation (NSF) Environmental Sustainability Program supported the participation of numerous young researchers (students, post-docs, and junior faculty) who became part of a newly formed Scholars Program. This special issue on “Sustainable, Healthy Buildings & Communities,” was one of the products of this NSF support. Articles from authors who attended the workshop, as well as authors who responded to a later Call for Papers have been included in this special issue. A brief overview of the 12 accepted papers follows below. Funding Information: Finally, this special issue would not have been possible without the lengthy time commitments and financial resources of a number of individuals and organizations. Michelle Coley at NIH was absolutely instrumental in making the 2018 workshop happen. She was aided by her NIH colleague Susan Permut, Judith Heerwagen from the General Services Administration, Margo Younger from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, and Fernando Arias from the Clark Construction Group. Linda Sorrento (Sorrento Consulting) led the effort to create the HIBR Scholars Program, and continues her leadership. NIH provided the Natcher Conference Center, and the committed time of several NIH staff members, free of charge. As mentioned above, the NSF Environmental Sustainability Program led by Dr. Bruce Hamilton provided funding to support a large number of participants through a collaborative award to Arizona State University and the University of Maryland (CBET-1746081). We gratefully acknowledge all of this valuable support. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF, nor of the NIH.

PY - 2020/5

Y1 - 2020/5

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85081702474&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85081702474&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.106806

DO - 10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.106806

M3 - Editorial

AN - SCOPUS:85081702474

SN - 0360-1323

VL - 174

JO - Building and Environment

JF - Building and Environment

M1 - 106806

ER -