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Healthy Buildings International
Healthy Buildings International originally did business as ACVA Atlantic Inc. Then a small firm that inspected and cleaned office HVAC systems, it was picked up by Big Tobacco and was part of its ventilation "road show" until 1999, when it changed owners. As of 1999, it severed its relationship with the tobacco industry.
Healthy Buildings International helped Big Tobacco spin secondhand smoke as "merely a symptom of a larger problem: inadequate ventilation." Part of Philip Morris's strategy is to organize "firms" like ACVA into a traveling road show to hawk their wares to government and businesses ...
"Before ACVA went to work for Big Tobacco in 1985, it had annual revenues of around $250,000. In 1986, the tobacco industry began paying ACVA to perform surveys, to make statements and offer testimony that Secondhand smoke was an insignificant contributor to indoor air pollution, and to claim that ventilation — not smokefree measures — could solve so-called "indoor air quality" problems. To have any value to Big Tobacco, however, the consulting firm had to maintain the appearance of independence.
By 1991, ACVA had changed its name to Healthy Buildings International. By 1994, thanks at least in part to $30,000 a month retainers from the tobacco industry, sales had risen to $2 million.
Gray Robertson, was often seen representing Healthy Buildings International, addressing the media and legislative bodies as part of Big Tobacco's anti-smokefree "road show." He is no longer associated with HBI in any way. The terms of his departure from HBI bar him from doing any
consulting in the United States.
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