| Executive Summary
Background
Canadians spend the majority of their lives indoors ！ whether inside their vehicles, offices, restaurants, shopping malls, skating rinks or houses. And, despite the progress that is being made, there is convincing evidence that many of these indoor settings are damaging the health of the people working and living in them. Leading authorities such as the American Lung Association, the American Thoracic Society, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the United States General Accounting Office, the United States Presidential and Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and others have consistently identified indoor pollution as one of the most serious risks to human health.
In the United States, indoor pollution is estimated to cause thousands of cancer deaths and hundreds of thousands of respiratory health problems each year. The National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine recently issued a report on asthma and indoor air quality causally linking certain indoor exposures to the development and provocation of asthma. In addition, thousands of children have experienced elevated blood lead levels resulting from their exposure to indoor pollutants.
Unfortunately, pollution in Canadian buildings of all types has received insufficient attention from government agencies, corporations, other non-government organizations and individuals. Since the 1970s, conferences have been organized and numerous reports have been written stating the need for research and action ！ yet today many indoor environments in Canada remain as polluted as they were thirty years ago.
Canada's Response to the Problem
To a large degree, this situation has developed because we have neither clear structures nor national strategies in Canada for addressing indoor environments, nor ！ with very few exceptions ！ any acknowledged government or community leadership on this complex issue. In contrast to outdoor environment issues, government policy toward the indoor environment is limited and fragmented. There is a relatively well-developed policy framework for outdoor environment issues, with specific government ministries at the federal and provincial levels assigned legal authority, resources and responsibility to promote improvements in environmental quality. The same situation does not exist for most indoor environments, including homes, schools and recreational spaces.
Similarly, despite advances made by many individuals and organizations, industry's overall response to the indoor environment issue has also been limited. Some manufacturers of building materials and consumer products (e.g., air purification, furnishings, tobacco) have denied a link between their products and indoor pollution. Others have argued that the cost of achieving healthy indoor environments (e.g., smoke free restaurants) is not worth the benefit. Because of the range of industries involved in a typical building process, there is ample opportunity to shirk responsibility and little capacity to arrive at a common or collective solution.
On a positive note, the increasing number and efficacy of healthier alternatives demonstrates that practical, cost-effective solutions are available now ！ and that the opportunities are significant. Voluntary standards could be put in place to encourage and recognize buildings that are operated and maintained in ways that improve the indoor environment. Service professionals who diagnose and treat indoor environment problems could be kept current about healthier solutions, and certified in ways that recognize this expertise. Consumers could be informed about the health risks associated with the products they buy or use, and about available alternatives that can help minimize these risks. Educating medical professionals could assist in the diagnosis and treatment of people harmed by indoor exposures. We already know how to design and build healthy and energy-efficient buildings. Taking action now to address the indoor environment issue has the potential of improving occupant health and productivity while avoiding health care costs ！ estimated to be upwards of $150 billion in the United States. What seems to be missing at this stage is a coordinated response that effectively identifies the key issues, actions and responsibilities for improving indoor environmental quality in Canada.
Healthy Indoors
To address the indoor environment issue, Pollution Probe launched Healthy Indoors in cooperation with a wide range of government, non-government and industry stakeholders. The purpose of this effort is to bring people and ideas together to develop a vision of what is possible in the field of healthy indoor environments ！ along with a collaborative strategy and multi-stakeholder commitment for achieving that strategy.
Healthy Indoors is a broad partnership of organizations and individuals committed to improving indoor environment issues in Canada. It includes twelve sponsors and thirty supporting partners interested in developing a comprehensive multi-stakeholder strategy for creating and maintaining healthier buildings in Canada between now and 2020.
Over the past several years, Pollution Probe and Healthy Indoors have:
? Developed background documents that brought together, for the first time, various components of the indoor environment issue that were previously treated separately ！ the legal aspects, best practices in the field and the market opportunities for indoor environmental products and services.
? Developed a draft national, multi-stakeholder strategy for discussion, which is harmonized with the US EPA's Healthy Buildings ！ Healthy People process.
? Created and facilitated an online consultation and community-building forum. Users have now viewed over 8,000 web pages of information, and downloaded the discussion documents about 1,000 times.
? Facilitated three daylong face-to-face forums in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax involving 160 stakeholders across the country.
? Revised the draft strategy and formulated action items based on this input.
The following final report is a compilation of this multi-year effort to develop and implement a strategy for creating healthier indoor environments in Canada. Specifically, the report identifies 15 action items that form the basis of a strategic direction for achieving healthy indoor environments in residential, commercial, and institutional settings. See Table 1 for a summary of how the specific action items hope to be used to accomplish the five goals of Healthy Indoors
The linchpin of the recommended actions and the ideas contained in the report is the need for an indoor environment secretariat (a Healthy Indoors Partnership) to advocate on behalf of, coordinate activities for, monitor, and expand the number of organizations and individuals working for healthy indoor environments in Canada.
The action items outlined in this report constitute important first steps toward achieving healthy indoor environments in Canada ！ but they are only first steps. Through the Healthy Indoors Partnership, we must build a movement to create a powerful and permanent response to the indoor environment issue in Canada. Only by raising awareness of the opportunities and benefits that improving healthy indoor environments can bring to the health, well being and productivity of all people, can we hope to achieve our vision of healthy indoor environments in Canada.
 Full document:
| 