Tether CEO Says The Fight For Kiwi Workplace Health Is Far From Over

Covid made Kiwis aware of how their work environment impacts health, and while there have been some adjustments in behaviour, Government must take steps to make sure positive change not only sticks but endures.

Brandon van Blerk, CEO of Kiwi tech start-up and leader in solving building performance problems, said that 95 per cent of New Zealand's office buildings, classrooms and workplaces are unhealthy.

"The primary villain is that ventilation in most workplaces is shockingly poor. They're petri dishes for viruses and bacteria. I wouldn't be surprised if we doubled our national productivity just by giving people healthy air to breathe."

Van Blerk said that as the pandemic phase of the Covid-19 crisis moves into an endemic phase, it will become tougher to encourage more building owners to make changes to improve building ventilation.

"It's fantastic how many Kiwi businesses are taking responsibility for the health and safety of their employees. I'm also thankful people are protecting themselves by taking the vaccine.

"Yet, it is still too early to tell if the lessons we all learned during Covid-19 will stick and change how everyone lives in the future," van Blerk said.

He understands the financial pressure on companies. Not only is the virus hanging around, but the pandemic itself also took a baseball bat to the economy and still threatens thousands of people each week who fall ill and must take time off work.

"All these costs make it hard to convince companies to spend money upgrading the ventilation of their buildings, even though research shows this single action does the most to mitigate the risk of spreading viruses," van Blerk said.

To ensure future variants of Covid-19 don't cause the same problems, building owners will need to upgrade their ventilation at some point if they want to encourage both employees and customers to return to their venues.

Yet without government legislation, van Blerk said it is unlikely building owners, and companies will act on their own initiative to solve ventilation problems.

"I understand the trepidation about new legislation, but many businesses and building owners appear to be waiting for legislation before spending any money," van Blerk said.

The "devil will be in the details," he added, but updating legislation to encourage better carbon dioxide monitoring in buildings would be a great way to create a consistent indoor experience for both employees and customers across the country.

"The caveat is that any legislation should be flexible enough to allow for nuances in air monitoring because this is just a proxy for the spread of viruses. The wider goal of legislation must be to encourage better ventilation overall."

While the Building Code is presently getting a make-over, van Blerk said it might be some time until the Government can introduce appropriate regulations for ventilation.

In the meantime, nothing is stopping building owners from improving the ventilation rates of their buildings. Van Blerk offered a handful of tips so they can get started:

1. Get the data

As the legendary businessman Peter Drucker once said, only that which can be measured can be managed.

In the same way, van Blerk said before buying expensive ventilation upgrades, it is first necessary to measure a building's current ventilation rates.

"Everything starts with a diagnosis. If your car is broken, you take it to the mechanic. Carbon dioxide monitoring is the best way to assess if ventilation upgrades are needed.

"If a building does have a problem, what times does that problem occur? At what level of human activity in the building does the air quality deteriorate? You can make the right calls about upgrades by learning about the building. Don't spend money if you don't need to," he said.

2. Monitor your space

Gathering data about ventilation can be as simple as writing in a notebook every time someone opens a window. But that is time-consuming and inefficient. A better solution is to use monitoring software.

"Good monitoring technology helps assess if the ventilation in a room is sufficient. This is important because, with insufficient ventilation, you begin to re-breathe other people's air – and potential viruses.

"This kind of monitoring can supply many interesting data about indoor air quality. Tether's system can also offer you a great analysis of the data it gathers so you can choose the right solutions for ventilation upgrades," van Blerk said.

3. Keep learning

Covid-19 was a crash course for most people about how viruses spread.

Two years later, van Blerk said he is impressed by what the average person knows about how lousy ventilation boosts the spread of viruses.

"I've never seen such widespread knowledge about the importance of airflow. Even schoolteachers know the effects of carbon dioxide on their students, not just in terms of climate change.

"When dealing with an aerosol-based virus-like Covid-19, we must do our best, and right not that is to increase ventilation," van Blerk said.

For more information visit: https://www.tether.co.nz/

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