“Now, are all you sitting comfortably? Then let us begin.” Schoolmasters and storytellers know all about the importance of comfort. It’s the difference between a rapt audience and a frenzy of fidgeting.
Businesses need to get smart, too. Common sense suggests that employees who work in a comfortable environment are likely to be happier, healthier and more productive. Anyone who has sweated at their desk through the summer or suffered headaches because of garish office strip-lighting will concur.
Empirical research lends weight to the case for comfort. Poor indoor air quality is attributed to an average productivity loss of 10%, according to a 2008 literature review. Another experiment among office workers in Denmark found that their typing, proofreading and creative thinking all improved in line with increases in ventilation.
So what can be done to improve comfort for office workers and do these measures connect to improved sustainability? A big part of the answer starts before an office block or commercial property is even built. Occupational health experts talk of “design intent”, a term coined for the potential mismatch between how a building is constructed and what it’s actually used for. A windowless room is fine for use as a storeroom; it’s less great if designated as a workstation.
Responsiveness represents another key factor. So the lights are too bright, or the heating too cold, or the office space too noisy. If employees feel that management is acting on their concerns and complaints, most people turn out to be quite forgiving. If nothing changes, then don’t be surprised if a fracas follows.
If you find yourself in a modern commercial property, however, there’s a good chance you won’t have to wait for the person from facilities management to pick up the phone. You can take the initiative yourself. The equipment that regulates your office environment – heaters, ventilators, air-conditioners and the like – frequently have override options that allow you to personalise your immediate working areas to your own comfort levels.
But is individual control so welcome? Employees might think so, but environmentalists aren’t so sure. From an energy efficiency perspective, current thinking indicates that it’s preferable to centralise office management systems as much as possible. That way a building’s total energy consumption can be closely monitored and tightly regulated. So, no more lights left on overnight and an end to radiators heating empty rooms over the weekend.
The arrival of smart technologies, such as learning thermostats, could feasibly resolve this dilemma between personal choice and overall efficiency. Imagine an office that could teach itself your behavioural patterns and comfort needs, and could automatically adjust your working environment to fit. Sound implausible? The sci-fi office of the future may be closer at hand than you think.
Enter the so-called Internet of Things. The term refers to a new range of wireless-embedded devices equipped with tags and identification protocols that allow them to “talk” to one another. Unlike computational technology, this cutting-edge gadgetry doesn’t need humans to enter data and commands. They can do it for themselves.
Imagine an app on your phone that constantly measures your temperature or heart rate, and then triggers the air conditioner to inch up or down as required. Or a window that registers how sunny or cloudy it is outside and adjusts the lighting levels accordingly.
Such smart solutions are now technologically feasible. But do the economics work for them to be taken up by the mainstream? And, if intelligent systems turn out not to cost the earth, who will be responsible for managing them: the property owner, the tenant company, individual employees? Or could they just be left to autonomously manage themselves?
The prospect of smarter energy solutions throws up other tricky questions around individual behaviours and motivation. Should employees be dissuaded from staying late to avoid additional energy costs, for instance, or penalised (or rewarded) for opening the window? What’s more, if workers know their behaviours are being monitored, could they withdraw their consent and refuse to participate? Employers will also need to think hard about how best to incentivise energy-efficient behaviours, without compromising comfort levels.
Get involved
We’d love to hear what you think about this topic. Is the key to happy, sustainable workplaces giving employees autonomy over their working area? Or is this incentivising inefficiency? Could smart technology be the answer and does it make financial sense for businesses? And how can staff be persuaded to change behaviours and consider energy efficiency at work? Share your thoughts below in the comments section or tweet us @GuardianSustBiz.
The energy efficient buildings in focus is funded by Climaveneta. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
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