An institution of employee-habitat that provides a positive platform in which they create further growth benefits not only the creator but the creations that it elicits. It is no surprise that a creative and healthy environment in which we create and produce manifests positive employees, fast and positive results, and lower overall costs. The compliment of sustainability principles in this environment produces inherent sustainable creations further extending the values placed in its original design and implementation. Whether a shell-construction, retrofit, or tenant improvement - applications of sustainable-principles makes positive-value sense.

Company image (of sustainability) is another aspect which is not as important in the long-term, has short term benefits in this climate of a fast-changing environmental awareness. The ultimate reasons for sustainable building principles are to create intuitive-benefits to the company residing in it, not overt (or image-based) "greenwashing." The intuitive benefits an office will see are measured in employee-dedication, enhanced and positively-influenced product-creation, and overall enhanced global-benefit of the firm.

The office environment, along with education, has a component of "partial use." Meaning that the building or site is heavily used for a certain part of the day and week and then it's vacant. This is good and bad.

The good:

• Daylight use can be maximized (limit lighting usage).
• Evening and weekend energy resources can be isolated based on need, not entire building.
• Lifespan of materials generally increase with limited and sporadic use.
• Material selection can be based solely on intended use.

The bad:

• A singular time of use means other times the building is wasting space and essential "standby" resources.
• Energy isolation measures required for the occasional use is an additional purchase and coordination (although still cheaper than turning the whole system on for custom use)
• Poor use of urban space - non-use equals human inactivity which equals isolation and possibly crime.

The office has a retail component which many do not realize. The tenant is selling a service and is generally frequented by clients. These clients' perception of this working environment selling the service has a dramatic influence on them. Continued business-dealings (who doesn't want to deal with someone who has long-range goals in mind?), a brand loyalty (refer to our retail sector for this one), and potentially a side-collaboration effort to infuse similar principles into his/her office or service-request. The inadvertent benefits even before the building is erected can be visualized.

These are real scenarios. These are real examples of well established principles in action. Refer to the Case Studies section for where this has already happened and how.

Refer also to:

Environmental Standards

Sustainable Building Concepts

A Study of Office Worker Performance and the Indoor Environment - Heschong Mohone Group, Inc.

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