Sustainable Office Design - Unlocking Performance & Productivity

HOW DO I BEGIN?

TEN TOP TIPS

CHOOSE A CHAMPION

Sustainability is a cross-functional idea touching most key business functions, yet is quite a hazy notion to those who haven't been exposed to it. To prevent its wafting through people's minds without engaging them it needs a champion, someone who 'gets it', and has the status, authority and persuasiveness to bring people on board, such as the CEO or head of communications, for example.

SHIFT MINDSETS

Indifference to sustainable design is usually based on misconception that sustainability is somehow about suffering and cost. Properly done, it's quite the opposite, but whether you are the designer or the client, you may have to draw on some shining examples to demonstrate that it can improve quality of life and work.

“Efficiency is free. Ask for more.”

Lee Eng Lock,Singaporean efficiency genius

CREATE A DREAM TEAM

Whether you're a designer or client, start with a team. Sustainable design needs a range of skills and perspectives. At a functional level, daylighting and dimming systems need great coordination to work properly, and so it makes sense to involve lighting designers, contractors, equipment manufacturers and building operators. At a business level, an office redesign is a great opportunity to invite the productivity giant in - burgeoning evidence points to leaps in well-being and productivity while drastically reducing energy and other costs. Not for nothing are sustainable buildings also called 'high performance buildings'.

PAINT A PICTURE

Sustainability, once people know what it is, is a rare beast because it can inspire them in unexpected ways. Scandia, the Swedish hotel chain, took 5,000 employees on a sustainability trip and were astounded at the effect it had in galvanising overall enthusiasm for performance improvement.

If you are the client, involve all employees in the design (or redesign) of the office. Give them a glimpse of what a sustainable office can look and feel like. There are some wonderful examples of workplaces which have fresh air, natural lighting and are a delight to work in.

JOINED UP THINKING

See your office as a whole system, not a series of components. Integrating systems, such as lighting, heating and cooling, is key. If you consider air conditioning without looking at lighting, you will miss the chance to reduce air conditioning. Look for what shouldn't be there, as well as what should.

THINK BEFORE YOU LEAP

Some 80% of design costs are determined at the design and concept stage; Joseph Romm has calculated that by the time 1% of a project's costs have been spent 70% of its life cycle costs will have been committed. Thinking, planning, designing are (relatively) cheap. By spending more time in the thinking zone, you could save costly rethinking later. Think twice, what to design in: integration, synergies, multi-functionality, and what to design out: superfluity, complexity, compound inefficiencies, waste.

“The design concept, as William McDonough puts it, had "taken the filters out of the pipes and put them where they belong - in the designers' heads". Everything that shouldn't be in the process had been eliminated by design.”

Hawkens, Lovins & Lovins, Natural Capitalism

MEASURE YOUR FOOTPRINT

Look at your current ventilation and thermal control, plus lighting and energy use. Also think about the impact of work patterns - if most employees drive or use public transport, for example. Use carbon calculation tools to get a better sense of your overall environmental footprint. Reducing the footprint often means reducing costs.

TRACK YOUR FOOTPRINT

Designing an office with sparkling sustainability features may miss a trick if you don't follow through on maintenance and monitoring. Even with energy efficient systems, it has been found that more regular monitoring and tweaking of controls can yield surprising additional cost savings.

INVITE IDEAS

Companies with internal competitions for sustainability ideas have usually reaped far more in savings and other benefits than they aimed for. Dow Chemical began an annual competition for wringing out new efficiencies that would save money and resources. They set tough criteria with short paybacks, but found that the number and quality of projects increased over time as employees got into the swing of generating and implementing ideas.

KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID

People can be overwhelmed by the quantity and complexity of sustainability concepts (not to mention the jargon). Choose or create a definition that works for you and stick to it. Procter & Gamble struggled to engage managers until they adopted the UK Government's definition around creating quality of life for all, now and in the future, as a way to help employees engage with the concept. It was something people could relate to and act on.

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