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Dyson has published its Air Purity Pulse Check report, looking into UK attitudes towards the importance of indoor air quality.
The study considers the views of the public and business leaders, owners and managers on the problem of indoor air pollution. It found that over half of people polled are concerned about poor air quality impacting health, yet only 59% of people polled believe their own homes have good air quality.
Younger, working age respondents are more likely to be more concerned about indoor air quality, with over half (54%) of people between the ages of 25 to 34 years old and 51% of people between the ages 35 to 44 years old saying it concerns them more than outside air quality.
When it comes to poor air quality’s effects on health, the UK public is even more worried: 55% of those surveyed say that they are concerned about poor air quality impacting their health and, of that group, 80% of respondents say they have become more concerned about this in the past three years.
Tim Jones CEng MIET, Lead Research Engineer at Dyson, said:
Despite indoor air quality being much more prevalent in our lives, people are far more aware of the impacts of poor outdoor air quality. At Dyson, we believe that it’s time to make the invisible visible and the Air Purity Pulse Check report aims to do exactly this.
The past five years have changed our relationship with air quality, as we spend the majority of our time indoors. In particular, the public has been made much more aware of the air circulating in their indoor spaces, whether in a shared or private space. Despite its importance, indoor air pollution is largely invisible so has flown under the radar. This in-depth study illustrates the current views and opinions of the public and business owners, creating a ‘pulse check’ on the nation when it comes to indoor air quality.
The majority (90%) of UK leaders, managers and owners believe that air quality in the workplace is important. This directly correlates with the public, with 90% saying that air quality in the workplace is important to them as well.
However, there is clearly a mismatch between what is considered important by decision-makers and what actions they are taking: only 65% of managers say that air quality in the workplace is a business priority, and half of people polled say that the organisations they work for have invested in indoor air quality.
The findings demonstrate that indoor air quality should be a business priority to aid staff wellbeing and retention. Two thirds (66%) of people polled said they would be uncomfortable working somewhere with poor air quality and nearly half (46%) said air quality would be a consideration when deciding to take a job.
This report follows the launch of Dyson’s latest model, Big+Quiet Formaldehyde, earlier this year. Engineered with shared indoor spaces in mind, it purifies rooms up to 100m² evenly and fitted with filtration systems that remove 99.95% of pollutants
