Annika Feige

Impact of sustainable office buildings on occupant's comfort and productivity

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to research the impact of sustainable office buildings on occupants comfort and self‐assessed performance and work engagement.Design/methodology/approach – The research consists in an empirical study of 18 office buildings and is based on survey data from almost 1,500 employees.Findings – The study shows that the building itself has a clear impact on the comfort level of the building user. Also, the positive impact of certain features, such as operable windows and the absence of air conditioning, can be clearly identified. While productivity is not directly correlated to comfort levels, work engagement is. Generally, the analysis shows that specific building aspects seem to have an influence on user comfort and with that, also an impact on productivity; however, this impact appears to be limited.Originality/value – This is a very important insight since this shows the connection between employee and company and thus demonstrates that a high user comfort can reduce t...

Rental price and sustainability ratings: which sustainability criteria are really paying back?

Given the centrality of the price mechanism to resource allocation in market economies, the effect of sustainable construction on real estate prices has become an increasingly important empirical issue for market participants and policy makers in the real estate sector. Drawing upon a sample of approximately 2500 residential building units in Switzerland, this study assesses the effects of buildings’ sustainability on their rental prices. In contrast to the vast majority of previous studies that have focused on the price effects of eco-labels, this study investigates the effects of individual sustainability attributes. Overall, we find a positive relationship between the environmental performance of residential buildings and their rental levels. Sustainable building characteristics, especially those which enhance the water efficiency, the health and comfort level and the building’s safety and security, have significant positive price effects. It is argued that the unexpected negative relationship between energy performance and rental prices is attributed to the bundling of energy costs and rents in Swiss lease structures.