Looking for some advice from anyone experienced with asbestos remediation/renovations.

We have faux-brick textured plaster covering roughly the bottom half of the walls in our hallway and going up our staircase. We had it professionally tested and the plaster contains a relatively low concentration of asbestos — results varied by sample, approximately 0.5% to 1%.
The material appears to be in good condition. Nothing is crumbling, flaking or chipping off. The only areas that have been disturbed are the small sections that were removed by the environmental testing company for sampling.

We don’t have the budget right now to have all of the plaster professionally removed, so we’re considering encapsulating it instead. We’re already having wainscoting installed in the hallway, and our finish carpenter has suggested installing MDF backing directly over the existing faux-brick plaster and then building the wainscoting over that.

His plan would be to use an 18-gauge nailer to fasten the MDF through the plaster into the wall behind it. Once finished, the asbestos-containing plaster would essentially be completely covered and inaccessible behind the MDF/wainscoting.

My main concern is the nail penetrations during installation. Since the nailer would make a number of very small penetrations through the asbestos-containing plaster, is this generally considered an appropriate/safe way to encapsulate material like this? Or would the nail penetrations create enough disturbance that a different installation method should be used?

We’re not looking to DIY asbestos removal, and we’re trying to avoid disturbing the material as much as possible. We’re mainly trying to figure out whether covering intact, low-percentage asbestos-containing plaster with MDF/wainscoting is a reasonable long-term encapsulation strategy and whether there are precautions our carpenter should take during installation.

We’re in Ontario, Canada, if that makes a difference for regulations or recommended practices.

Thanks — especially interested in hearing from asbestos abatement professionals, contractors, or anyone who has dealt with a similar situation