Kardham Digital has chosen Airthings, the world leader in air quality monitoring for businesses, public authorities and private individuals, to enable managers of commercial buildings to offer their occupants the best possible air quality depending on usage. The collaboration is a response to the major challenges in terms of quality of life at work (QWL), and once again highlights the importance of digital technology and data in the service of more efficient, safer, healthier and more responsible buildings.

The quality of air in the workplace, now a key QWL issue

The Covid-19 epidemic has heightened awareness of a subject that until now had remained on the doorstep of companies: air quality in the workplace. On the one hand, it has enabled employees to acquire a better understanding of the links between CO2 levels and air renewal rates, a concept directly involved in the dissipation of viruses and bacteria. For their part, and despite the sensitivity of the subject, companies have understood the importance of measuring and displaying these CO2 levels transparently in their premises, as a way of demonstrating their actions to improve ventilation and limit the spread of viruses, often in conjunction with strong CSR or employer brand issues. The issue of air in the workplace has become all the more crucial as the return to the office has sounded the death knell of the closed office, paving the way for new ways of organising work with unassigned shifts in open spaces. Finally, proactively communicating about air quality has also accentuated the need for the various departments to have factual arguments with which to engage in dialogue with their staff. This is because these new ways of organising work have also given rise to new fears, such as the temperature being too high, the noise too loud, the light too low or the workspaces too dense. These issues needed to be discussed on the basis of reliable, historical data: to analyse past situations, compare changes in situations and improve the decision-making process for future actions. Initially a simple factor in protecting employee health, air quality in the workplace has thus become a key QWL issue.

Using data to make better decisions and take action

These and many other new expectations of commercial property operators and users are at the heart of Kardham Digital’s R&D department, which was launched in 2022. Its mission is to identify, qualify and implement the procedures for deploying the connected objects that organisations need. It was in this context that the ESN teams approached Airthings on the subject of air quality. Thanks to this partnership, the air analysis data supplied by Airthings will feed the smart building technologies developed by Kardham Digital, in particular the software platforms used to control the building’s active equipment (access, ventilation, lighting, water supply, air quality) in line with the data from the digital applications supplied to occupants (room and car park reservations, occupant services). Kardham Digital’s teams will be able to correlate the data supplied by Airthings with data on people flow and access control, for example, to define the most appropriate actions to control indoor air quality and optimise ventilation, heating and building maintenance on the basis of reliable, objective information. And there’s another benefit: by controlling air flows more effectively, building managers will also be able to minimise their energy wastage and so reduce their carbon footprint. Lastly, this partnership is an additional opportunity to facilitate decision-making, improve management of the working environment and ensure complete governance of building data according to use.

“We’re delighted to have been chosen by Kardham Digital, a dynamic company with the unique ability to act on the entire building environment. Today, monitoring indoor air quality is no longer enough – the market expects more. Working with Kardham is a fantastic opportunity to combine our IoT with a corrective lever and to be part of a unique global offering covering everything that happens in the workplace”, comments Rémy Journet, Business Development Manager at Airthings.

“Airthings is a high-quality partner when it comes to measuring environmental parameters. With new ways of working calling for better management of the flow of people, information about people is becoming essential and is at the heart of the issues we address at Kardham Digital. By exploiting the data from Airthings’ technologies, we can meet these new expectations while creating additional value for our customers”, continues Jérôme Hérard, Director of Digital Workplace Solutions at Kardham Digital.

“This collaboration with Airthings underlines our holistic approach to data governance: by integrating occupancy data, control data and air quality data, we can enhance the user experience in commercial buildings. It also reflects our conviction that harnessing building data is at the heart of its economic, ecological and social performance,” concludes Pascal Zératès, Managing Director of Kardham Digital.

© Airthings