“Normal air conditioning systems take in outside air, add the in-door pollutants and pump the mixture out on the street.” – why CO2 emission reduction will not help us clean the air in our homes.

Ilse Massenbauer-Strafe, Founder, Oxyvital, Hong Kong, P. R. China

What do you think of when you hear “air pollution”? Smog? Traffic? Large and old industries? Did you ever think of the air in your office or in your home to be pol-luted? Unfortunately it is, and it’s often the reason of headaches, feeling of tiredness and other health issues. In-door air pollution is a huge problem today almost no-body is aware off. And this bad in-door air also contri-butes to the outdoor air pollution in the cities – especially where air conditioning is used extensively – by up to 40%.
Oxyvital, the enterprise Ilse Massen-bauer-Strafe founded in 2002, is providing a comparatively easy and clean solution. “However”, as Mrs. Massenbauer-Strafe explained, “it is not only about cleaning air, but also about doing this with less energy. If we continue using the amounts of electricity most com-mon air conditioning systems require today, we will never be able to become environmentally sustainable in cleaning the air.”

Enjoy reading some of Ilse Massenbauer-Strafe’s thoughts in the selected quotations below and you may be able to read more about her and her air-cleaning technologies in our book “MyImpact”.

Ilse’s selected quotations:
“If you want to change things, it is a good idea to start where it’s easiest. Often it is in your closest proximity. I started in my own small company and I make sure my 12 employees have good and human working conditions. Humanity is important and shows in the small things.”

“My father taught me that everybody who does some-thing deserves a smile and a “thank you”. This is always important to remember.”

“With Oxyvital we address the issue of the extremely high in-door air pollution causing environmental damage and many health issues. It is not anymore that the air on the streets is bad, the air in office buildings or our homes is much worse.”

"While normal oxygen levels are about 21%, people in Hong Kong only get about 16% because of the pollution."

“With our products we use much less energy necessary to circulate the air in a building and we push out cleaned air back on the streets. Normal air conditioning systems take in outside air, add the in-door pollutants and pump the mixture out on the street.”

“The cleaning of the air within our appliances happens through zeolites, natural minerals traditionally used in many parts of the world but widely forgotten today. They process the pollutant gases down to sizes 2,000 times smaller than 1 micron, so they are really breaking down the pollutants to new clean chemical substances, rather than just collecting dust and bacteria in filter-based systems."

“Our climate is changing. Whether you are a CEO of a huge corporation or a normal worker – we all sit in the same boat and most of the times use the same air.”

“We need to find a solution how to use less energy and keep people healthy.”

“I want to wake up and be able to say that I am still a person with values. You cannot teach values to someone but you need to have them to be able to look at yourself in the mirror.”

“One of my most important values is family. My husband, my son, my parents… There is no way, anyhow, how you could give back to your parents what they gave to you.”

“Every day is a new beginning, a beautiful starting point. It’s not worth to carry the old frustrations with you. You have to be spontaneous enough and ready to take the next opportunity coming up.”

Some background on Ilse Massenbauer-Strafe:
Ilse Massenbauer was born in Linz, Austria, where she became a kinder garden teacher, focusing on psychology. At the age of 23 she travelled to China, worked in a kinder garden in Beijing and started taking over marketing jobs. To improve her business skills, she graduated Marketing at the Cornell University and then worked for Re-naissance and later Conrad Hotels in Hong Kong. After meeting her hus-band, Ilse spent some time in Aus-tralia and later 5 years in Korea. Still living in Korea, she started founding her enterprise in Hong Kong. Today she enjoys living together with her husband and son in Hong Kong, managing Oxyvital and being engaged in community affairs through engagement and fund raising for social enterprises.

Some background on Oxyvital:
Ilse Massenbauer-Strafe initially was confronted with some scepticism when she launched Oxytival, a company which makes machines claimed to dramatically improve air quality. But office block owners quickly realised that these appliances were an effective way to make the air purer, particularly in blocks suffering from the so-called sick building syndrome.
Now, the business has sales of around US $ 2 million and a full order book from corporate organisations and individual apartment owners.
Mrs Massenbauer-Strafe originally began with an oxygen bar in Hong Kong. Its popularity made her realise there was scope for a larger venture.
Working with a German scientist, she developed the Oxy-vital system of compact oxygen-generating machines that improve indoor air quality by reducing pollutants. In addition to a more pleasant working environment, it is claimed that, through careful monitoring of the air conditioning system, energy bills are reduced significantly.

If you would like to engage with the work of Ilse Massen-bauer-Strafe or get to know more about Oxyvital please visit www.oxyvital.com,
or, for more specific opportunities, contact joanna.stefanska@myimpact.ch or wolfgang.hafenmayer@myimpact.ch directly.