The productivity paradox in green buildings
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Authors
Byrd, Hugh
Rasheed, E.O.
Rasheed, E.O.
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Date
2016-04-08
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Type
Journal Article
Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori subject headings)
Keyword
green buildings
productivity
post occupancy evaluation
internal environmental quality (IEQ)
offices
office workers
workplace design
work performance
surveys
productivity
post occupancy evaluation
internal environmental quality (IEQ)
offices
office workers
workplace design
work performance
surveys
ANZSRC Field of Research Code (2020)
Citation
Byrd, H., & Rasheed, E. (2016). The productivity paradox in green buildings. Sustainability, 8(4), pp.347. doi:DOI: 10.3390/su8040347
Abstract
In this paper we challenge the notion that “green” buildings can achieve greater productivity than buildings that are not accredited as “green”. For nearly two decades, research has produced apparent evidence which indicates that the design of a “green” building can enhance the productivity of its occupants. This relationship between building design and productivity is claimed to be achieved through compliance with internal environmental quality (IEQ) criteria of Green rating tools. This paper reviews methods of measuring productivity and the appropriateness of the metrics used for measuring IEQ in office environments. This review is supported by the results of a survey of office building users which identifies social factors to be significantly more important than environmental factors in trying to correlate productivity and IEQ. It also presents the findings of observations that were discretely carried out on user-response in green buildings. These findings demonstrate that, despite a building’s compliance with IEQ criteria, occupants still resort to exceptional measures to alter their working environment in a bid to achieve comfort. The work has been carried out on “green” buildings in New Zealand. These buildings are rated based on the NZ “Green Star” system which has adopted the Australian “green star” system with its roots in BREEAM. Despite this, the results of this research are applicable to many other “green” rating systems. The paper concludes that methods of measuring productivity are flawed, that IEQ criteria for building design is unrepresentative of how occupants perceive the environment and that this can lead to an architecture that has few of the inherent characteristics of good environmental design.
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MDPI - Open Access Publishing
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DOI
DOI: 10.3390/su8040347
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Copyright notice
© 2016 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 New Zealand
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 New Zealand