So, since most people are not thinking about this, we will. In particular, we want to focus our thinking on green office buildings and work behaviours and cultures. Here is a list of some of the issues we think are important to consider:
- Comfort. It is important to measure the cultural definitions of what comfort is. The UN report suggests consideration of "to what extent people are ready to make behavioural changes in the way they experience comfort in their environment." (340). There are also clear cultural preferences which affect the settings of air conditioning and heating in terms of warmth and airflow. Connected to understanding how individuals in a workplace understand comfort is understanding the ways in which an individual may be limited in expressing or being comfortable in terms of work hierarchies and norms. Simply, are there prevailing definitions of comfort or is there one person's comfort who matters more than others? How might office hierarchies play out in the control of temperature, lights, and air flow day to day?
- Efficiency. Understanding how efficiency is defined is essential, for like comfort and cleanliness, these fundamental definitions form the base of action. How does the definition inform other ideas of efficiency and behaviour? These definitions and ideas can be best seen in what is called the rebound effect or the Jevons paradox whereby, for example, people leave lights on because the bulbs are low energy or drive further in a more fuel efficient car than they did in an older car.
- Cleanliness. Deep seated beliefs about cleanliness can affect green buildings at the big scale in terms of say acceptance of compost toilets to the small scale in terms of acceptance of ecological cleaning products and frequency of cleaning.
- Work Culture. Specific work cultures have norms of behaviour which can influence how green a building might be. For example,
- the formal and informal dress code of a particular work place can clearly affect the way a building operates. If the dress code is always suits, then it is likely the air conditioning will be set high to accommodate those clothes. If sweaters are considered too casual, then heating will have to be higher. Many countries and institutions have attempted to address this. Perhaps most famously, since 2008, the UN has done it by encouraging staff to wear business casual, that is a nice shirt and trousers, but no tie or jacket instead of suits. This move saves the UN over US$100,000 in an average August alone.
- norms around personal items at desks can affect individuals' ability to store a sweater to wear if they feel cold. Or a change of clothes if they cycle to work. Or even to store a glass and/or mug for drinks.
- norms around first arrivals and last leaving are small work culture behaviours that can have big affects. For example, it is habit when first arriving at work to turn all lights on? And who turns off the lights at the end of the day?
- office habits such as turning up air conditioning when hot rather than closing blinds or turning on heat rather than putting on a sweater can behaviours which can affect the energy consumption of a building. Also, since office equipment is a significant area of energy consumption, it is also important to consider the uses and behaviours associated with those. Are staff encouraged to turn computers off at night, when away from their desks? How are photocopier machines managed? Are they left on over weekends? Where are servers and data centres housed? How are they cooled?
--Judith
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