SMARTER STRATEGIES

U.S. Office Buildings Behind the Curve on Efficiency and Sustainability

John Jainschigg | Date: 05-07-10 | Comments

An IBM survey seeks to identify and quantify numerous ways in which unsustainable architecture, old-school building systems--and business practices evolving around these relatively "fixed assets"--add costs and reduce worker satisfaction, health and productivity.

IBM�s April 29, 2010, study of 6,486 office workers in 16 U.S. cities compiled responses in 10 areas of interest, including elevator wait times, Internet access, badge access, control of lighting, use of renewable energy, low-flow toilets and other water-saving infrastructure, and use of air-friendly (i.e. low-emission) products in construction and decor. The study also examined workers� opinions of how environmentally friendly their offices are, and explored their willingness to participate in building redesign, recycling and other efforts to improve sustainability.

IBM undertook the study to better understand how consumer thinking about urban infrastructure may be shifting, due to heightened concerns for climate and economy. The stakes are not small: According to IBM, buildings consume fully 72 percent of all electricity (wasting half), generate 38 percent of electricity-related greenhouse gases and release more emissions into the environment than cars. By 2025, buildings will be the largest consumer of electricity and emitters of greenhouse gases.

Much of the survey amounts to a report card on how well U.S. business is stepping up on environmental efficiency issues (e.g., low-flow toilets, natural cleaning agents, paper recycling programs, bike racks to encourage biking to work, etc.). Responses are clearly very skewed by region, with workers in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco ranking their offices fairly high in environmental savvy by comparison with workers elsewhere. These skewed results probably reflect many factors, from general social attitudes to the age and architectural history of building stock in different areas.

One uniformly hopeful metric shows that workers are indeed ready to commit to sustainability programs mandated by their employers, depending on incentives, and to contribute personal time, energy and inspiration to redesigning workplaces for greater sustainability and general utility. Crowdsourcing solutions from the workforce makes good sense, particularly when you consider that much of sustainability re-engineering is about incremental, rather than dramatic, solutions.

In a white paper discussing the survey, IBM researchers note what they call an "intelligence gap" that prevents many systems from working incrementally better. This is a powerful idea�the notion that the utility of existing buildings and systems can be extended, low-hanging fruit picked off, and real efficiency and sustainability gains made through minimal investment simply by applying, for example, computer sensing and control technology in nuanced ways to solve the right problems.

The main take-away from the report (beyond learning that New York City's 2 million workers in elevator-equipped buildings spend a total of 22 work-years per calendar year stuck in elevators�which sounds like a big number until you realize it translates to only 1.2 minutes per year per worker) is that everyone's low-hanging fruit is somewhat different. In fact, there are many office buildings in New York where poorly designed elevators, badge systems and other bottlenecks severely hinder worker productivity, deform office culture and force pathological adaptations�and in these situations, closing the "intelligence gap" can clearly make a major difference. The point is to find those situations.