29-03-2014, 12:50 PM
Green Buildings and Productivity
Abstract:
Healthier space need not be new space. In fact, some new buildings are extremely
unhealthy as chemicals leach out into the air from glues, carpets, concrete and paint. There is no
reason this must be the case. The cost to provide healthier environments is modest compared to
the benefits. Healthier buildings reduce sick time and increase productivity, making it easier to
recruit and retain employees. The results provided here are based on a survey of over 500
tenants who have moved into either LEED or Energy Star labeled buildings managed by CBRE.
INTRODUCTION: Do green buildings improve productivity?
While we now have some evidence on rental premiums and occupancy differences for green
buildings, defined as including both Energy Star labeled and/or LEED certified at any level, from
several studies we know little about the real impact on productivity for tenants.1 There has been
one widely cited early study by Greg Kats (2003) which had a sample of 33 green building
projects that suggested present value benefits of $37 to $55 U.S. dollars per square foot as a
result of productivity gains from less sick time and greater worker productivity. These resulted
primarily from better ventilation, lighting and general environment.
Here we greatly expand our scope of analysis and re-visit the productivity issue. Unfortunately
one impediment to answering this question is the problem of measuring productivity. Studies in
the past that dealt with typing speed or output are not quite satisfactory for those who wish to
know about overall productivity in better environments. Here we review some of the literature
on measuring productivity in office environments, then we examine some of the attempts to
monitor productivity and last we examine our own efforts to determine if better environments
result in greater productivity. This is part of a larger joint study by the authors with details
available by request.
Subjective Productivity Measurement
An excellent review is provided by Kemmila and Lonnqvist (2003) where they state
“Productivity is an important success factor for all organizations. Improvements in productivity
have been recognized to have a major impact on many economic and social phenomena, e.g.
economic growth and higher standard of living. Companies must continuously improve
productivity in order to stay profitable...There are several different methods for productivity
measurement. Most of the methods are based on quantitative data on operations. In many cases,
it is quite difficult and sometimes even impossible to collect the data needed for productivity
measurement. An example of this situation is the work of professionals and experts. Their work
is knowledge-intensive and the inputs and outputs are not easily quantifiable. Therefore, the
traditional productivity measures are not applicable...An old but scarcely used approach to
productivity measurement is subjective productivity measurement. Subjective productivity
measures are not based on quantitative operational information. Instead, they are based on
personnel’s subjective assessments. The data is collected using survey questionnaires.”
Recent Workers’ Productivity Gains From Technology or Economic Pressures
According to the results from the 2008 White Collar Productivity Index (WPI), the only study of
its kind providing long-term data on how people actually spend their time at work, there was a
reduction in the time people are spending on low productivity tasks during 2007 as compared to
both 2006 and 2005. According to Bary Sherman, CEO of PEP Productivity Solutions, ‘The
WPI study indicate[s] that America’s white collar worker are becoming smarter and more
effective in their day-to-day routines. They appear to have a better grasp on how to use
technology as a productivity tool and are getting more of the right work done in less time. Until
this year we have seen a steady increase in non-productive time usage every year since we
started measuring office productivity in 1994. It will be exciting to see how this trend plays out
over the next years.’
Telecommuting and Productivity
Telecommuting is becoming more prevalent in today’s workplace. It has evolved for various
reasons for employees and employers. Employers may opt to allow their employee to work from
home when rush-hour traffic is a true hindrance in arriving to work at a set time, hence reducing
commuting time and potentially increasing productive work hours. Working mothers who cannot
afford to maintain a full-time job and a full-time household now have access to achieving the
goals of home and work through telecommuting options. In addition the working student or
professional that seeks to further his education is more valuable to the company working from
home where he can still maintain his workload and focus on scholastic achievement
simultaneously. Many workers, who for various reasons, prefer or need to work from home,
when permitted assist firms in the retention of successful talent. Thus the prevalent need for
telecommuting forces recognition of its pertinent impact on worker productivity.
Temperature and Productivity
Many office studies were performed in call centers where the time required talking with
customers, the processing time between calls with customers, and other relevant information
were automatically recorded in computer files. In these studies, the speed of work, e.g. average
time per call or “average handling time,” was used as a measure of work performance.
Laboratory studies typically assessed work performance by having subjects perform one or more
tasks that simulated aspects of actual work and by subsequent evaluation of the speed and/or
accuracy of task performance. Seppanen et al (2009) calculated the quantitative effect on
performance of temperature. “We calculated from all studies the percentage of performance
change per degree increase in temperature, positive values indicating increases in performance
with increasing temperature.
Indoor Air Quality and Productivity
A series of experiments to determine limiting criteria for human exposure to the very low levels
of indoor humidity that occur in aircraft cabins at altitude (<10% RH) and in winter in cold
countries (<20% RH) was performed in two climate chambers at The International Center for
Indoor Environment and Energy (ICIEE). Three different office tasks were simulated, including
text-typing from a hard-copy onto a computer screen, proof-reading a printed text into which
spelling, grammatical and logical errors had been inserted, and an addition of a column of five 2-
digit random numbers, without zeros, printed conventionally. In these tasks, the rate of working
and percentage errors were examined separately. In the first air quality experiment, a
performance assessment battery that has been widely used for military purposes was used instead
of the proofreading task, but as it proved insensitive to environmental conditions it was not used
in subsequent experiments. Open-ended tests of memory, recall and creative thinking were
applied in most of the experiments. “Field intervention experiments in two call-centers
demonstrate that the decrement in performance can be larger in practice than it is in realistic
laboratory simulation experiments.”15