The Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), creators of the LEED green building rating system, and Inspired Air Fund, a program of Renaissance Philanthropy dedicated to making healthy air standard in every classroom, announced the Classroom Clean Air Alliance.
Children spend roughly 1,000 hours per year in school buildings, and there is a strong relationship between indoor air quality and health and academic outcomes. Air cleaners serve two important purposes, according to the Center. First, in schools that need major HVAC upgrades — an estimated 36,000 schools nationwide, per the USGBC — portable units offer an affordable way to improve classroom air quality without waiting years for HVAC upgrades. Second, even where ventilation works well, in-room filtration adds clean air capacity that central mechanical systems can’t easily deliver, helping reduce exposure to pollutants and respiratory infections.
The new alliance translates school experience and feedback into useful market guidance and calls on manufacturers to develop a new generation of classroom air cleaners for schools that are effective, affordable, quiet, durable and practical to maintain.
Since deploying in-room air cleaners during the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing wildfires, school districts have found that day-to-day use is hard to sustain when devices are too loud, too bulky, too expensive to maintain and too easy to switch off or neglect. The alliance is urging manufacturers to make their use simpler for schools and districts.
“Schools have learned a tremendous amount from deploying in-room air cleaners at unprecedented scale during and after the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Anisa Heming, director, Center for Green Schools. “Now, we have an opportunity to turn those lessons into a clear picture of what schools actually need — and invite manufacturers to work toward products that are effective at delivering clean air in classrooms day after day.”
To capture the needs and experiences of schools and the experts who serve them, the alliance convened listening sessions with 26 participants that included district facilities and operations leaders and educators who collectively serve more than 1.2 million students, along with indoor air quality researchers, practitioners and others involved in deploying and maintaining classroom air cleaners.
“Schools have learned firsthand what it takes for air cleaners to work in real classrooms — not just in a lab,” said David Carel, director, Inspired Air Fund. “The Classroom Clean Air Alliance turns those lessons into a clear signal to the market. By giving schools a stronger collective voice and inviting manufacturers into the conversation, we can accelerate products that deliver effective clean air while being affordable, easy to maintain and simple enough to keep running every day.”
The input of focus group participants helped shape a new Classroom Air Purifier Target Product Profile (TPP) for in-room mechanical filtration devices, addressing clean-air delivery, noise, filtration, maintenance, energy efficiency, durability, safety, cost, placement and device management. Among the group’s recommendations for in-room air filter units:
- Devices should have at least one setting that delivers sufficiently clean air without disrupting teaching and learning.
- Devices should operate by default, with the ability to centrally raise output under certain conditions while enabling teachers or staff to make adjustments manually as needed.
- Filter changes should take minimal time, and status indicators should report the actual condition of the filter rather than a timer counting down.
- Long-term, in-room air cleaning technology should be installed off the ground and on the walls or ceilings away from students to prevent unplugging.
The development of the TPP combines school-based experience with published research, existing standards and guidance.
