40 SUSTAINABILITY & WELLNESS IN COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS
“How would you rate the following elements in terms of importance for employee wellness?" Most Important Fairly Important Not Greatly Important Least Important
conflicts within teams, one respondent said that these (unsurprisingly) occurred “around budgets” in the main, and in “understanding the value of sustainability.”
Helping clients, helping architects Further benefits of using sustainability standards for project teams were highlighted in our survey findings, with verbatim comments including a wider project team benefit of using standards being that “people feel that they are contributing,” and that there is “more focused specification of products.” Additional comments on the benefits included “user satisfaction,” “client satisfaction,” “pride for the client and being able to make some contribution,” and that “client viewpoint of the company improves,” emphasising the importance of more intangible, reputational and CPD aspects of showing environmental responsibility. The differentiation possible for building owners would also mean it could “attract a wider base of potential tenants,” said one respondent, another adding that the result would be a “happier workplace.”
Applying standards could also help
in “controlling costs,” and “if it’s done right, mean less maintenance on the overall building,” said one respondent.
Another user mentioned that “better performance, better longevity, and more resilience” were compelling benefits. Despite the differing remit of the commonly used standards overall, there is some overlap. This has led IWBI, for instance, to allow WELL credits to be switched with BREEAM, assisting project teams as they drive towards overall holistic improvements for staff and clients.
Barriers to investment in sustainability & wellness Despite the compelling benefits for clients and architects,, our survey found several barriers which are holding sustainable schemes back. First in the list, and unsurprisingly given the recent impact of Covid on businesses, is cost of improvements, chosen by 77% of our respondents.
The next cited issue was ‘lack of Government incentives’ (chosen by 33% of architects surveyed as a barrier to investment). One commenter said: “Whole life costs are key to the circular economy, but Government policy has scarcely begun to address this.”
Further barriers to surmount were ‘lack of client desire’ (33%), ‘regulation’ (25%), ‘space requirements’ (20%), ‘skills’ (14%),
and lastly, ‘lack of building tenant/user desire’ (13%). One respondent commented that a “fractured silo approach” to the M&E element of projects was a further barrier which needed addressing. Clearly the case still needs to be strongly made that investing in sustainability and wellness is a business benefit, and not just a ‘nice to have,’ even in these straitened times.
Conclusion: a post- pandemic future
As we come to the end of the pandemic, building owners are looking to deliver more sustainable, healthier commercial spaces on a whole raft of criteria, from building-only attributes, to those which directly affect staff too. This is what it will take to attract the best staff, and the most loyal customers, in future.
The downtime has meant a resetting of goals in many cases, and a new urgency to produce better buildings for people, which will bring them back to workplaces. As well as making them safe for staff, workplaces will increasingly be designed with general sustainability, as well as more human- centric wellness aspects to the fore, to help support this goal. For the full version of this whitepaper, please visit
www.architectsdatafile.co.uk/ white-papers
WWW.ARCHITECTSDATAFILE.CO.UK
ADF FEBRUARY 2022
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108
