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Paper short abstract

Indoor air quality (IAQ) critically affects health and cognition yet remains marginal in European policy. This study analyzes four tech firms’AQ devices and narratives, revealing a neoliberal framing: IAQ reduced to PM metrics, tied to productivity and consumer choice, not public health or justice.

Paper long abstract

Indoor air quality (IAQ) represents a critical public health dimension, with mounting evidence demonstrating its profound effects on overall well-being, respiratory health and cognitive functions. However, IAQ remains relatively underrepresented in both public discourse and policy agendas, particularly in the European context. This presentation presents results of an analysis that deals with the problem under two interrelated strands. On the one hand, it examines the technological devices sold by four companies in terms of technological choices (choice of sensors and monitoring strategies, data formats, outputs etc.) and how they reflect a uniform representation of air pollution (reduced, for instance, to PM particles). Secondly, the analysis examines the discourses through which those companies frame the IAQ problem, identifying dominant narrative patterns and rhetorical strategies. Results from the two intertwined strands indicate a dominant "neoliberal approach" wherein IAQ is discursively constructed primarily as a workplace productivity issue rather than a broader public health or environmental justice concern, reducing air quality to one dimension (PM concentrations), emphasising individual consumer choice and market-based solutions and framing improved air quality as a competitive advantage in attracting talent and enhancing worker efficiency rather than as a fundamental right or collective responsibility.