The Invisible Climate Job Inside Every Building

Building ventilation eats 10% of all US energy — just for temperature. Most systems are on autopilot. Dr. Suresh Dhaniyala (Clarkson University, sensors on the International Space Station) explains how sensor-driven ventilation cuts energy 30-40% while improving the air we breathe. If your work touches buildings, facilities, or public health, your job can be a climate job.In this episode, we cover:Why CO2, humidity, and particulates matter more than temperature aloneThe 10% stat: what's really consuming building energy, and where the savings hideHow smart ventilation delivers better air quality AND lower energy useThe 30-40% energy savings that's already been validatedWho can start now: facilities managers, VPs of operations, building engineersThree sensors that matter: particulate matter, VOCs, CO2How NASA monitors air on the International Space StationPractical first steps: EPA AQI, indoor sensors, raising the question with your teamWho this episode is for:Facilities managers, VPs of Operations, building engineersHVAC and public health professionalsParents concerned about indoor air quality in schoolsAnyone whose work touches buildings━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Chapters0:00 A daughter's asthma attack0:24 Why buildings matter for climate1:20 What fills your days?2:49 Particles you can't see, sensors that can3:11 Growing up in polluted southern India4:27 How air moves through buildings5:20 Relative humidity and why it matters6:08 What's missing from current air monitoring7:28 CO2 as an occupancy and infection indicator9:38 The 10% stat: US energy for building HVAC12:11 How better measurement reduces climate impact13:33 Smart ventilation: better air AND lower energy14:46 Classrooms and offices: variable occupancy17:04 30-40% energy savings, validated19:35 Who can start: facilities managers and VPs of operations21:50 Seeing pollution from above: New Delhi from a plane25:15 A daughter's asthmatic episode28:27 Practical tools: EPA AQI, indoor sensors to buy31:27 Three sensors that matter: PM, VOCs, CO231:53 Air quality on the International Space Station34:10 ISS air: extremely clean and dirty at the same time36:43 We all have responsibility38:26 The invisible climate lever━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━About Dr. Suresh DhaniyalaProfessor of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering at Clarkson University. Founder of an air quality sensor startup with sensors in commercial buildings and on the International Space Station. Research focuses on airborne particulate matter and affordable sensing technologies.Resources mentionedEPA Air Quality Index (AQI): https://www.airnow.gov/South Coast Air Quality Management District (sensor performance reviews) https://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/evaluations/summary-tableThree sensor types to look for: particulate matter (PM), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and CO2Disclaimer: Views are the guest's own and shared for informational purposes.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎧 Listen to the podcastAlways posted here on Spotify, or: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@anyjobcanbeaclimatejobApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/any-job-can-be-a-climate-job/id1780900570Substack: https://anyjobcanbeaclimatejob.substack.com/━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━🎙 CreditsProduced and hosted by Louisa HenryEdited by ⁠Alex Leff⁠Music by ⁠Run Riot RunLogo by Cassidy Frost━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Sponsor or partner with the show: [email protected] with Louisa - coaching and advising for founders and leaders: kidoki.comKnow someone who thinks their job has nothing to do with climate? Send them this episode.