38 SUSTAINABILITY & WELLNESS IN COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
sustainability was ‘not important at all’ for their commercial clients in this context while only 10% voted for sustainability as ‘crucial’ (18% saw wellness as ‘crucial.’) By contrast, when it came to how clients were prioritising wellness against sustainability in general for commercial projects, the emphasis was firmly on sustainability in offices, according to 40% of our respondents, as opposed to 27% saying that wellness was a higher priority. According to our survey respondents, the top factor for contributing to employee wellness in commercial buildings was air quality (71% said it was the most important element). Next in line was natural lighting (59%), followed by noise levels (42%)
Sustainable design approaches Design approaches to reducing buildings’ energy use and carbon footprint are well established across the commercial sector, from offices to retail to industrial spaces. Using natural daylight to offset artificial lighting requirements, including green roofs and solar PVs, maximising insulation have all proven to make a substantial difference. And renewable tech such as heat pumps, geothermal heating, rainwater harvesting and boreholes are more mainstream options for architects and clients. However, genuinely ‘passive’ design approaches to enable buildings to harness solar gain, prevailing breezes, and stack ventilation – and provide thermal mass benefits – could be fewer and further between in commercial buildings. The first Passivhaus office in England wasn’t completed until 2011, although there has been a steady stream of schemes since then.
Healthy building standards There is increasing evidence across the workplace sector in particular that sustainability and wellness accredited buildings benefit their owners in the form of increased rental rates and sales value for developers and owners, as well as productivity and job satisfaction. BREEAM, LEED, and The WELL Building Standard each offer building owners different types of accreditation. They all represent a ‘stamp of quality’ for staff and reassurance that clients are prioritising wellness, health and sustainability. WELL was launched in 2004, as the “first globally applicable standard on the
“What is the main barrier to building more sustainable commercial properties?”
relationship between buildings and humans, especially human health.” It is now operated by the International Well Building Institute (IWBI), which has reported “skyrocketing demand” for accreditation of workplaces post-pandemic. It is also promoting the standard as a tool for futureproofing premises as we ‘learn to live’ with Covid.’
IWBI believes that buildings accredited to
WELL “help employees achieve more, increase the quality of work produced, decrease absenteeism and increase connection with the employer.” Other claimed benefits include recruiting better talent, reduction in staff turnover, increased revenue, reduced medical and healthcare costs, and increased “perceived physical and psychological health.” From our survey, just over a third of respondents (38%) said that sustainability certification was ‘occasionally’ a client requirement in the commercial projects they had worked on. Only 28% said that it had never been a requirement, and 9% said that it was always required.
BREEAM was overwhelmingly the most used method for respondents, with 48% saying they have used BREEAM New Construction on a commercial project, and 31% saying they’d used BREEAM Refurbishment & Fit Out. Next in line were Passivhaus (26%), BREEAM In-Use (22%), with WELL used by 15%, LEED by 10%, and other standards such as the RICS’ SKA
rating being used by 15% of respondents. Using standards positively affects the level of specification (in terms of client budget) on commercial projects, according to our respondents, however only 17% said it was ‘greatly affected’: 35% said it was ‘moderately affected,’ and 14% said it was ‘not affected at all.’
The use of standards also helps coordinate a design team to focus on sustainability goals in a thorough, systematic way in projects, and gives designers and clients a common point of focus. As one commenter in our survey points out, this “consciousness raising” has the added benefit of “leading to demands for higher standards in projects.”
Conflicts & conundrums Shortcomings within the standards have been identified over the years, e.g. presenting conflicts for designers in themselves and within projects. One issue cited by a respondent to the survey was that clients would “chase the easy points.” Another added that in masterplanning terms, the point system “favours certain building types over others, which may not encourage the optimum commercial/retail/housing mix for a given area.”
Another said that the current standards failed to tackle “fire testing of innovative materials including timber-based and cradle-to-cradle products.” In terms of
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