Green Scene

BY PHIL HAGEN

Championing Indoor Air Quality

Stacey Champion, a certified indoor environmentalist.

Stacey Champion's speech title "Is Green the New Black?" turned out to be a trick question for some listeners at last October's Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA) annual meeting and exposition in Las Vegas. They missed the mockery by 180 degrees, fully expecting her to put the green movement in its over-hyped place, like it was some passing fashion. They left disappointed.

"I think there was so much antagonism because a lot of people are looking at it like it's just the next trend instead of something bigger and more meaningful," says Champion, a certified indoor environmentalist (CIE) based in Cottonwood, Arizona. "It's trendy now because it makes sense. We need to change how we're doing things."

You'd think she would have been preaching to the choir at a conference like that, but IAQA associates — from HVAC experts to engineers — evidently are as prone as anyone to be reactive instead of proactive. Even the green side of the building business hasn't quite fully addressed the scope of indoor air problems, Champion says, which is odd given the human desire for health, comfort and safety.

So, Champion's mission is to close the gap between those concerns and doing something about them — to get indoor air quality in sync with sustainability.

The money obstacle in green building is slowly being overcome by the realization that sustainable design isn't necessarily more expensive and that it can cut long-term costs. Yet, while many Americans today will pay more to get organic produce, the one health concern that's always right there in front of their noses (air) in the place where they spend 90 percent of their time (indoors) usually gets ignored. Though we have more knowledge than ever about the consequences of poor indoor air quality (from allergies to cancer), many of those who design or decorate our living spaces have been slow to "get it," Champion says.

While she spends a lot of time doing "a kind of CSI" on sick buildings (those with hidden moisture, poor ventilation or toxic fumes), she's most proud to offer a specialty not often practiced in the indoor air-quality world: proactive consulting. When she's hired in that capacity, it's either to be a part of a design team or as a designer-client go-between. "I explain in lay terms why certain things are important," Champion says, "so they're not feeling like they're being up-sold."

Or "green-washed" — the marketing syndrome that happens to the best of us. Champion will review manufacturers' data sheets and do product research to make sure designers are choosing air-friendly furnishings and finishes. "Sometimes they will be completely sold on a product," she says, "but then I'll dig into it and find that it contains formaldehyde or something."

That particular irritant is common in pressed-wood products; other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are found in paints, finishes and waxes. She's built a list of safe materials, including clay paints, plaster walls ("I wish it would get trendy again, because drywall is the perfect mold food," she says) and flooring that doesn't involve carpet — especially cork, real linoleum and soy-based concrete stain.

"Carpet should be avoided all at costs," she says. "It's a reservoir for everything gross. If people can switch to hard-surface flooring, that's huge. Then they should look at whether that flooring contains VOCs."

Healthful options are becoming less expensive and more familiar, but the "gap" remains. In interior-design circles, Champion says, many a decision still comes down to style over substance. This paint may be more healthful, but that designer paint has such nice colors … "Who cares about the shade of red on your wall when your kid has asthma by the age of 3? But that's just me," she says.

Champion, a former journalism student, has always been green-conscious and "a science dork," but her career path didn't factor in those two qualities until six years ago, when her husband and son suffered from respiratory illnesses and she began having migraines and seizures. Turns out their house had larvae-filled standing water inside a wall, and nobody could help them. In fact, so-called "mold experts" came in and only made the problem worse.

"In states like Arizona, people can take a one-day class and call themselves an expert," she says. "Well, that company ended up contaminating our entire house. So I started doing research, and literally within one day knew more than anyone I was dealing with."

After working for a couple of firms in the indoor air quality field, she became a consultant about four years ago. "My goal was to help keep this from happening to one other family," she says. "I've done that many, many times over."

Now it's the professionals she's after, whether through her many speaking engagements or consulting.

"A lot has changed since I first started telling people about it — they used to just think I was crazy," she says. "We're still a society that likes to fix everything with a pill and not address the cause, but I think that's starting to shift."

Champion Indoors/Champion Indoor Environmental Services, Cottonwood, AZ; (928) 649-1847 or www.championindoors.com.