Green buildings healthier for staff

Feeling down‚ sleeping badly and not performing optimally at work? It may be that the building where you work is just not green enough.

A new study out of Harvard University has found that the lighting‚ temperature and design of a building have a major impact on the people who work there.

The study is the “first to show that working in green-certified buildings can improve employee decision-making‚ and found that occupants in green-certified office environments scored 26 percent higher on tests of cognitive function‚ had 30 percent fewer symptoms of sick building syndrome‚ and had 6 percent higher sleep quality scores than those in high-performing but non-certified buildings‚” said post-doctoral Harvard fellow‚ Piers MacNaughton‚ who led the study.

He and the team looked at 10 high-performing buildings in five cities across the United States “to study the relationship between building conditions and occupants’ productivity and well-being”.

Researchers assessed the effect of lighting and thermal conditions on the cognitive performance of office workers.

Included in the study were 24 Harvard employees who agreed to participate in the week-long health assessment‚ which included two cognitive function tests‚ daily surveys‚ and wearing watches that tracked sleep quality.

On each testing day‚ environmental factors‚ such as thermal conditions and lighting‚ were also monitored.

Temperatures in the official “comfort zone”‚ as defined by the American Society of Heating‚ Refrigerating‚ and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE)‚ had a positive effect.

Brighter‚ blue-enriched lighting‚ such as daylighting “was also associated with better sleep quality at night‚ which in turn led to better cognitive performance the following day”.

This finding supports research that a bigger contrast in daytime and nighttime light exposures can help regulate the release of melatonin‚ the hormone responsible for inducing sleep.

Jack Spengler‚ the co-principle investigator of the study‚ placed this study in a larger context. “When you think of the urbanization that is going on around the world‚ we will see a doubling of our built environment before the century is over. We better do it right — energy wise‚ material-wise‚ and to optimize the human condition in those environments.”