THOUGHT LEADERSHIP
Environment & Air Quality Q&A with Dr. Iyad Al-Attar
Photos courtesy of Dr. Al-Attar
By Caryn Smith, IFN Chief Content Officer
A view of Toronto during the 2023 wildfires.
I
n an interview with Dr. Iyad Al-Attar, a filtration consultant researching urban air quality governance at the University of Oxford, he calls for an initiative to “challenge and change” the status quo of air quality as a pillar of healthy buildings. He believes the success of the built environment lies in fostering our well-being, not just architecture, by sustainable living, not just modernity, by changing the complexion of air quality, not just a facelift of filtration, and by altering our design philosophy and not just our conventional wisdom. Dr. Al-Attar is also an advisory board member of the Waterloo Filtration Institute and recently, he became the Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) patron for EUROVENT. He is a regular conributor to International Filtration News (IFN). We connected with him on his thoughts on improving IAQ.
32 IFN ISSUE 1 2024
Q+A IN THIS ISSUE:
DR. IYAD AL-ATTAR
Visiting Academic Fellow, Cranfield University
International Filtration News: What drives our environmental challenges? Al-Attar: The impact of poor environmental conduct is everywhere, from dumping plastic bags in lakes and oceans to the inadequate rationing regulations and infrastructure of waste management to the overconsumption of food and resources, to corruption, pandemics, and conflictinflicted economic catastrophes. Environmentally speaking, we are running amuck, considering the increased concentration of our anthropogenic emissions, whether particulate matter or gaseous contaminants. Most of our environmental challenges are driven by how we live, consume our natural resources, and generate and use power. The World Health Organization reports that 99% of the world's population lives in ambient conditions with pollutant
