Building Air Quality

Action Plan

Step 7: Communicate with Tenants/Occupants About Their Role in Maintaining Good IAQ

Maintaining cooperative relations with tenants and occupants:

Reference: Building Air Quality - Action Plan: Section 3, "Effective Communication," Page 13-17; also, Building Air Quality - Action Plan: Section 5, "Managing Buildings for Good IAQ: Occupant Relations," Page 40.

Purpose: To open communication lines between building owners and tenants/occupants so that tenants/occupants can become part of the solution to IAQ problems.

Early and frequent communication with occupants is important both to prevent IAQ problems from occurring and to secure their cooperation when solving existing problems. It is important for building occupants to understand that their activities can create indoor air quality problems and that their cooperation is critical for maintaining good IAQ in their building. To help educate building occupants/tenants about the effect of their actions on IAQ, the EPA has published a publication entitled, "An Office Building Occupants’ Guide to Indoor Air Quality." It explains the roles and responsibilities of both building occupants and owners/managers and can be freely copied. We recommend that you make this publication available to all tenants/occupants. Contact the EPA’s IAQ Information Clearinghouse to obtain a paper copy.

Specific Steps:

1. Inform tenants and occupants about building conditions and policies that may have a significant adverse IAQ impact.
2. Notify tenants and occupants when major renovation, remodeling, maintenance or pest control activities are planned.

Building management is responsible for notifying building tenants, and, where applicable, building occupants, about building conditions, policies, or activities, such as unscheduled maintenance events, that may have a significant adverse IAQ impact. Building occupants and/or tenants are responsible for notifying the IAQ manager when activities are planned that could affect the building’s IAQ (e.g., construction or other pollutant releasing activities) and promptly bringing unusual conditions to the attention of the IAQ manager. An example of this communication comes when tenants are planning construction, remodeling or renovation activities; the IAQ Manager should be made aware of these plans in order to review them with the whole building’s IAQ in mind. Both parties should use chemicals and materials in accordance with their label instructions and MSD sheets.

Building Air Quality - Action Plan [PDF - 905 KB]

Building Air Quality [PDF - 2,851 KB]