IEQ: Indoor Environmental Quality
One of the main reasons that this category exists is because many of the products we currently use in building construction are not conducive to a proper living situation. The rooms are either too hot, too cold, too damp, smell funny, smell like chemicals, give us headaches, don’t have good lighting, or don’t have any windows to the outside. I once worked on a job site as an intern where my office had absolutely no views of the outside, just the dirty trailer walls. In order to see daylight you had to literally walk out of the room and down the hall.
Since people spend so much time indoors, it is worth the investment to create a comfortable environment for them. This is achieved through the last and often times most forgot about section of LEED: Indoor Environmental Quality.