by Shane Henson — July 26, 2013—The Professional Retail Store Maintenance Association (PRSM), an authority on retail, multisite facilities management, released a guide titled Retail Facilities Indoor Environmental Quality & Comfort this month to educate retail facilities managers and others on the need to improve in-store air quality, and to provide information on how to upgrade existing systems while executing long-term plans for new-store construction.
As the authors of the 10-page guide note, ensuring a store has optimal air quality is important—be it for a shopper in the store for 30 minutes, a full-time employee, or a vendor visiting on-site to do a specific task.
Improved indoor air quality is reliant on a number of operational tactics; however, two of the most critical ones are increased air intake/exchange and high-quality filtration that reduce air born particulates, according to the guide.
Realizing indoor air quality is still emerging as a requirement in the overall landscape of corporate social responsibility, the guide provides retail FMs with seven “first steps” to get started. They include guidance in these areas:
- Outdoor Air Delivery Monitoring
- Increased Ventilation
- Reduced Particulates in Air Distribution
- Indoor Environmental Quality and Comfort
- Tobacco Smoke Control
- Occupant Comfort
- Thermal and Lighting Comfort Monitoring
Information in the guide is provided in these segments: Leadership Defined, Measurement and Benchmarks, Suggested First Steps, Tools and Getting Involved, LEED requirements, Retail Examples and Case Studies, Education and Conferences, Continued Reading.
The guide is the sixth module in PRSM Association’s online Sustainability Resource Center, created to provide strategic and tactical information, tools and templates across a number of recognized environmental focus areas.
