The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products (ASBP) is delighted to partner with the Breathing City Future Urban Ventilation Network, led by Professor Cath Noakes.
We wholeheartedly support the network in its aim of better understanding how airflows transport pollutants through urban and indoor environments. One of the ASBP’s main areas of work is on indoor air quality within buildings, predominantly at the product-level, exploring issues such as source control, off-gassing, formaldehyde, VOCs and material toxicity.
We are the UK partner of the European association natureplus, whose ecolabel has been awarded to over 600 building products in Europe. Stringent certification requirements are set by an independent ‘criteria commission’ who assess the product’s life cycle, embodied carbon, pollution control, resource efficiency, and stipulate rigorous laboratory testing for VOCs and other harmful substances. Source control testing results for all natureplus certified products can be accessed on the free-to-view Baubook database. There is currently no such trusted resource for source control data for construction products in the UK.
We are a not-for-profit, mission driven organisation working to enable a healthy and low carbon built environment. We organise regular events, conduct original research and run working groups on topics including reducing plastics in construction and natural insulation.
We share knowledge and guidance with our alliance of 80+ members from across industry including designers, engineers and product manufacturers. We have a 2000 strong mailing list and 5000+ social media contacts and will share regular updates on the FUVN’s activities and outputs via our channels.
Our annual Healthy Buildings Conference regularly attracts 200+ attendees from across industry to discuss air quality/ventilation issues, non-toxic/low-VOC product specification and healthy buildings design. We were delighted to be joined by FUVN Principal investigator Prof. Cath Noakes at our fifth annual Healthy Buildings conference in February 2021, which also featured talks from air quality campaigner Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, and Clean Air Bill advocate Geraint Davies MP. Previous speakers include Sir Stephen Holgate, Prof. Anna Stec and Emily Penn.
The ASBP has in-house expertise on source control and air quality issues, and has authored a number of technical briefing papers on topics such as Formaldehyde and its effects on human health, the Health & wellbeing benefits of natural fibre insulation, and Airtightness, vapour control and breathability.
We look forward to working closely with the Breathing City Network and its partners over the coming years, and would be delighted to co-host events, input into working groups, provide case studies and share findings throughout our diverse network.