Lennart Ostergaard is the Eurovent Commission Chairperson and Senior Manager of VELTEK Ventilation. In the ‘Faces of the Eurovent Commission’ series, he shares with us what the Eurovent Commission looks forward to working on.
Lennart Ostergaard graduated from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and has held various job positions as Project Manager and Business Development Manager for different companies. He has been part of Eurovent over the past years and is also a member of the Board of Directors, General Assembly, and various Product Groups within the association. As part of the ‘Faces of the Eurovent Commission’ series, the Eurovent Team conducted an interview with him to understand more about the works of VELTEK Ventilation and to obtain information on the Eurovent Commission’s prospects in 2023-2024.
VELTEK Ventilation
What is VELTEK Ventilation and the main focus points it is involved in?
VELTEK Ventilation is an industry association for manufacturers and suppliers of ventilation products and systems. VELTEK Ventilation organizes approximately 50 members, active on the markets for comfort, industrial, fire and smoke ventilation for any kind of building: homes, schools, offices, healthcare, and industry. The vision is that everyone should enjoy the best possible indoor climate. Regardless of where are, must achieve this with the least possible total energy consumption.
Numerous schools across the European Union are fitted with scarce ventilation systems
There is still a lot to do for society to succeed in this sense. To give one example, numerous schools across the European Union are still equipped with inadequate ventilation systems, leaving children at risk for increased infection rates and reduced learning outcomes. Indoor climate researchers in Denmark even believe that the adverse effects of poor indoor climate affect students with learning difficulties more than other students.
Average EPDs
Deeply concerned with climate change and the role of industry in this sense. Recently documented the environmental impact of key components of the ventilation industry in Denmark through the creation of industry average Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).
Believe that it is important for a responsible industry to openly show the impact of products, although for most ventilation systems, the energy consumption in the use phase is still the primary and most important factor to reduce and optimize.
Requirements for IEQ
It is also important to realize that the solutions from the ventilation industry are indispensable as part of a move towards sustainable buildings. Sustainability rests on three pillars; environmental, social, and economic. Social sustainability in buildings has a lot to do with the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) that are exposed to.
Optimizing the energy consumption without formulating minimum requirements for the IEQ
Therefore, insist that IEQ is considered when revising, for example, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). Optimizing the energy consumption without formulating minimum requirements for the IEQ simply does not make sense. The European Parliament has shown the way for proposing an amendment to the European Commission’s proposal suggesting that Member States must formulate requirements for IEQ nationally. Believe that this is the right way forward.
Eurovent Commission
What are the main focus points for the Eurovent Commission in the 2023-2024 year and how are managing to tackle them?
As the Chairperson of the Eurovent Commission, it is a privilege to be in close dialogue regularly with more than 15 industry associations across Europe. Although all of them are different in terms of organization, resources, types of members, and climatic and regulatory environment. Share almost the same vision for a great indoor climate with minimal energy consumption.
For the next year, sincerely hope that the Eurovent Commission will be able to succeed with at least two notable activities: Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ).
Different EU regulation proposals
The creation, publication, and sharing of EPDs across Europe is a landscape that is simply too fragmented and too expensive for the industry to navigate. This will inevitably result in higher costs for the customers and a slower green transition than possible.
Creation, publication, and sharing of EPDs across Europe is a landscape that is simply fragmented
In Eurovent, will try to formulate and present inputs on how to arrive at a more stringent situation where the right data are available for making efficient and green choices and at the same time have minimum administrative burden and costs for the industry. It is, for example, not optimal that different EU regulation proposals to use different frameworks for documenting environmental impact, or that there is a proliferation of national calculation rules in this matter.
Benefits of IEQ
Another topic for the Eurovent Commission to address is how to better communicate the benefits of IEQ. Indoor environmental quality has so many benefits for society in relation to health, productivity, learning and well-being, but often see that these effects are overlooked in regulation and in building projects.
This is a topic which will try to promote more through the work in the Eurovent Commission and hope for a swift management of these focus points.
