The variety of quality labels and classifications dealing with emission into indoor air require many similar tests to be done if a company wants to apply for more than one these. If we want to reduce the necessary number of tests and thus the costs then it is essential that these voluntary labels consider to adapt the international standards and try to harmonise. There are many different approaches in the respective testing protocols but also some common tracks. At the present stage it is already possible to combine testing requirements of some labels to a certain degree.

Thermal desorption (TD) is a readily automated gas extraction technology based on standard gas chromatography parameters and providing an efficient, high-sensitivity alternative to convential solvent extraction. It is applied in single stage form to whole-air samples (canisters, bags, air streams) or in two stage form to organic analytes collected on sorbent tubes. TD involves the extraction of volatile or semi-volatile organic compounds from a sorbent by heating the sample, rapidly, in a flow of inert gas.

This field study was organized to determine the ventilation required to maintain acceptable air quality in a retail store using the ASHRAE Standard 62-1989 performance-based procedure. Pollutant concentrations and ventilation rates were measured in a large retail store during four one-week intervals. The measurement intervals were each separated by three months to allow different weather conditions and mixes of retail stock to be present over the one-year field study in a cold continental climate.

DayMedia and MulCom are multimedia teaching packages targeted at architects and building engineers, as well as students. While DayMedia is concerned with daylighting in architecture, MulCom covers human comfort and the energy performance of buildings. Most of the content is related to thermal comfort, although acoustics and visual comfort are covered as well. The development of the packages has part-funded by the European Commission and coordinated by the Low Energy Architecture Research Unit (LEARN) of the University of North London.

This paper discusses the status of standards and regulations concerning performance calculationmethods for renewable energies systems in the built environment. The outcome of a European wideinquiry on this topic, carried out in the frame of the European project on Energy Performance Regulations (EnPeR) will be presented. In addition an overview is given of the renewable energiessystems that are considered under these regulations and the consequences of the new EnergyPerformance Directive.

In the framework of harmonisation of the Slovene legislation with the European, in 1995 the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning of the Republic of Slovenia began with the preparation of new Slovene standards and regulations. In the first phase adopting of a whole range of standards was planned. In the second phase, which is presently running, the preparation and adopting of regulations has to be completed.

The European Commission has expressed the wish to harmonize energy regulations in the building sector and at the same time has formulated goals for promoting the use of renewable energy sources. This paper studied the possible synergy of these two targets. To make a first step in this research topic renewable energy techniques are considered as environmental innovations for which incentives, being a public good, is dependent on governmental intervention, like energy policy instruments.

The operation of an outdoor test site requires very substantial efforts with respect to investments, maintenance, calibration and training staff. The existing documents dealing with quality procedures in principle guarantee that a good quality level is achieved at all test sites. This paper describes the existing quality manuals and the software tool PASLINKIT developed in the scope of IQ-TEST Thematic Network to make all this pertinent quality documents more practicable and feasible.

PASLINK is the grouping of 14 European research institutes involved in the performance assessment of the thermal and solar characteristics of building components under real climate conditions. Most of the members are performing semi-standardised tests using the PASSYS/PASLINK test cells. IQ-TEST is the European thematic network project aiming at further developing common quality procedures for testing, calibration, data gathering, cleaning and analysis, interpretation of test results and scaling/replication to real buildings, maintenance of test infrastructure.

IQ-Test is a Thematic Network supported by the European Community under the EESD Programme.The objective of IQ-TEST is to further develop common quality procedures for the PASSYS/PASLINK test cell facilities that exist in 12 European countries. This should consolidate thenetwork, integrate the new test sites and strengthen its common approach of support for new product developments in the field of innovative building components.Round robin tests are underway to assess both the inter-site quality of testing and analytical procedures of the participants.