Delos founder and International WELL Building Institute founder Paul Scialla discusses why indoor air quality and filtration are critical to human health, and how localized filtration can improve air quality without increasing energy use.
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:21:10
Paul Scialla: This is Paul Scialla, founder and CEO of Delos and founder of the International Well Building Institute. The International Well Building Institute is a third party verified system to validate the achievement of the well standard or the health safety rating. So we have been merging the health sciences with the building sciences for the better part of a decade.
00:00:21:11 - 00:00:48:29
Paul Scialla: Basically to best understand our indoor environment and its impact on the human condition. Given we're spending over 90% of our lives inside, at Delos we zoom in further, very specifically on specific products, solutions, technology, all vetted, best in class interventions, anything that's a good health intervention for any type of space. Air filtration, I think, is the hottest topic.
00:00:49:02 - 00:01:12:15
Paul Scialla: Indoor air quality has been an issue for the better part of a century. It's finally getting its due attention. Unfortunately, it took a global pandemic for people to really start to focus on indoor air quality. But we've long known that indoor air quality is generally 2 to 5 times worse than outdoor air quality. Basically, anywhere you go in the world, you're not hiding from pollution by going inside.
00:01:12:18 - 00:01:35:04
Paul Scialla: In fact, it's worse. And so with that said, practically speaking, if I put a dirty glass of water in front of you, you wouldn't drink it. You've got that choice. You don't have the same choice with air quality. Things like indoor air quality and particularly air filtration, you do not need to sacrifice one or the other.
00:01:35:04 - 00:02:08:28
Paul Scialla: Now we need to pay attention to better filtration indoors, but isn't that going to up the energy usage required to achieve that? The answer is no. In fact, we've seen and deployed technology that can contribute to a Merv 16 or 17 filtration equivalency with a Merv nine pressure drop in the HVAC, really accomplishing both the energy savings side of the narrative and the filtration side of the narrative and the impacts pertaining to people.
00:02:09:00 - 00:02:34:24
Paul Scialla: If you can localize filters, standalone, modular, portable, what have you, not only do you get incredible filtration efficiency, but you're doing so at the point of concern, as close to where people are as possible. So we're seeing huge adoption of a localized air filtration approach as well. When you actually put those two things together, obviously you've got an amazing formula, but each one individually can do its good job.
00:02:34:28 - 00:02:50:29
Paul Scialla: Localized filtration will certainly get you much more benefits as it pertains to SARS-CoV-2, influenza, what have you, with the right filtration and the right technology can lead to that high efficiency outcome with a lower energy usage. And that's an incredible combination.