Educate, Encourage and Empower: Building Efficiency at Work

Last month I visited the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) headquarters in London to speak at their ‘System Integration for Intelligent Buildings’ seminar.

There was a mix of people from various industry sectors, all meeting for the same reason – to find a suitable solution to the growing pressures for safe, productive workplaces and leisure venues that don’t damage the environment. The seminar highlighted that the focus seems to have returned to building design and systems that must be Integrated, Intelligent and Sustainable in order to be effective.

Whilst integrating systems to make a building more intelligent is an obvious technical solution, what many often overlook is that these systems can only be sustainable and effective if they are maintained and used effectively by the building occupiers... people.

Human behaviour can have a significant impact on building performance. Today, people place a great emphasis on comfort and satisfactory working conditions. Our research shows that in the 1980’s people were happy to work at temperatures around 15°C, today this has risen to 21°C. And rightly so, cutting back on energy usage no longer means having to compromise on our expectations, the comfort factor is now a pre-requisite for working conditions. The answer is simple, just make sure people are aware of the energy they use, and how they can help to improve and cut carbon emissions

Ensuring staff are aware of the amount of energy they use can have a positive influence on a company’s overall savings. Investing time on educating staff can lead to a noticeable reduction on fuel bills as employees learn how their behaviour impacts the organisation overall and how they can make small changes in their behaviour to make big changes (for the better) in their energy consumption.

Little actions can make a big difference both for the negative and the positive where enegy consumption is concerned. Ignorance is expensive, education is key. Understanding that overriding set building controls (like heating), turning the air conditioning on at the same time as the heating is running, or heating to 28C instead of 22C, forgetting to change time clocks for daylight saving times or bank holidays, or simply propping a door open or forgetting to close a window can all contribute to the 18 per cent of carbon emissions that is frittered away from commercial buildings every year – not to mention the thousands of pounds.

In November last year we encouraged one of our clients, The City Inn hotel in Westminster, to be proactive in their approach to integrating staff behaviour to work with building systems. The hotel invited their staff to a ‘show and tell’ session where they demonstrated how much energy had been consumed in their conference room over a set period of time, followed by an explanation of why these levels were so high and what – ideally - they should be. They also highlighted the monetary and environmental benefits being more aware they would bring to the organisation.

Staff became motivated almost instantly with regular praise for their efforts as a team and the company encouraged staff to celebrate these significant changes. Their efforts seemed more valued and worthwhile and not only resulted in more willingness to adapt to a new system but also to a 30 per cent reduction in the energy they consumed in their conference room. A phenomenal improvement!

The hotel’s achievement only exemplifies that integrating controls AND people can help businesses meet green targets and the overall 20 per cent reduction in carbon emissions needed (asset by the government). They work together.. if they are integrated.

My top tips for business is to:

UNDERSTAND – what people want and when

EDUCATE – staff on the best way to use systems

EMPOWER – staff or let them see the benefits of their actions.