Health complaints related to indoor air quality are increasingly common. Hence, it is well known that environmental factors act on the emergence of certain illnesses. Today, many people consider that their health problems are due to a specific building environment. Chemical, microbiological and particulate pollutants are of interest, but only as one category of potential factors. Other risk factors have been identified ranging from the individual's sex and health status to psychosociological issues and buildings characteristics.

The paper describes a pilot-study set up to identify links between internal environmental quality and perceived well-being in a 1970's higher educational building housing the Mackintosh School of Architecture. The supposition is that such links may in turn inhibit/promote greater productivity. The study embraces a variety of working situations for staff and students and explores levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction by means of questionnaire.

In many cases, it is possible to achieve a satisfactory comfort in summer in residential buildings with purely passive means (thermal inertia, solar protection, night ventilation). These parameters have to be taken into account at the earliest stages of building design, which requires guidance documents and simplified tools. We developed both, on the basis on a simple RC model with a particular attention paid to the impact of the outdoor noise (related to the windows opening at night).

The EQuity model is a Life Cycle Assessment-based tool aimed at evaluating and improving building products Environmental Quality aspects. Unlike most "classical" LCAs, EQuity is strongly based on users' statements about their perception of environmental quality, as well as their goals and constrains pertaining to a given product study. Two applications of the EQuity model are presented in this paper. They illustrate the benefits of the case-by-case approach.

How should environmental profiles be used for construction materials? An environmental profile is a graphical presentation of environmental burdens. The concept may be used to present the results from a number of different stages within an LCA. The most effective use of profiles for materials and products in buildings has yet to be established; whether they should present raw data or data which have been interpreted and to what stage in the life of the material they should be applied.

Environmental assessment of building elements and buildings requires environmental data related to the entire life cycle of the materials, inventory tools and assessment models for environmental impacts important to buildings. For that reason environmental data have been collected for a number of building materials in a project linked to a major Danish project on Environmental Management in Building Design.

The goal of sustainable development will be impossible to achieve without realignment of value creation by business arid the public sector. The environmental impacts of building activities are serious. There is a need for new competencies, better information about the environmental attributes of buildings, and suitable tools with which to achieve better eco-efficiency in practice. An aggressive commitment to developing and spreading the use of the Eco Profile method will provide a cost-efficient and attitude-changing environmental policy tool.

The LCA methodology [SETAC] is applied to buildings. The system limits, functional units and allocation principles are explained. Inventories have been established for 150 buildings materials and linked to the ECOINVENT database. Buildings are described on the basis of specifications which are aggregated to (cost planning)-elements. There is a catalogue of several hundred elements. Energy needs, costs and environmental impact are calculated simultaneously. Different views are possible (type of Impact. life time phase, element).

ATEOUE is a French working group created in June 1993 by the Ministry of Housing in order to harmonise and to facilitate the develop merit of tools concerning the improvement of building environmental quality (assessment methods, books of specifications, recommendations, etc. ... ). The methodological aspects play an important role in ATEQUE. ATEOUE is composed of the authorities concerned, and of 26 members representing all the categories of building professional actors (researchers, manufacturers, owners, designers, builders, consultants, service providers).