CBE Releases Occupant Satisfaction Study for Green Buildings

Occupants of green buildings are more satisfied with thermal comfort and air quality, on average, than occupants of conventional buildings, while occupant satisfaction with lighting and acoustics is comparable between green and non-green buildings. That is the chief finding of a study released in June 2006 by researchers at the Center for the Built Environment (CBE) at the University of California, Berkeley. The findings reflect results from 33,285 respondents and 181 buildings, 15 of them certified through the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED^® Rating System and another six identified by their designer or owner as “green.” Although acoustics was a trouble spot identified by a recent post-occupancy evaluation (POE) by the Cascadia Green Building Council (see

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Vol. 15, No. 4), and lighting was an additional concern in an earlier release of data from CBE (see

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Vol. 14, No. 6), the newer results seem to indicate fewer problems in both areas for green buildings but plenty of room for improvement.