by Rebecca Walker — May 3, 2010—U.S. office buildings have not kept pace with the revolution in automation that pervades modern life, according to a new survey of American office workers by IBM.
Buildings consume 72 percent of all electricity (50 percent of that electricity is wasted), generate 38 percent of electricity-related greenhouse gases, and emit more emissions into the environment than our cars do, says IBM.
The wide-ranging survey indicates that inefficiencies built into office buildings are taking a toll in lost productivity and added costs. The survey also revealed a groundswell of desire among working people to help remake their offices into greener environments.
Los Angeles emerged as the clear winner in the IBM Smarter Buildings study, which surveyed 6,486 office workers in 16 U.S. cities on issues ranging from office building automation and security to elevator reliability and conservation issues. Respondents answered a series of questions about the office buildings in which they work.
The Index is comprised of 10 issues: elevator wait times, Internet access, badge access, lights turning off automatically in the evening, presence of sensors that adjust lights and temperature when people enter and leave rooms, use of renewable energy sources, low-flow toilets, use of air-friendly products, respondents opinion of how environmentally-friendly building is, respondents desire to participate in building redesign.
The cost of the intelligence gap is reflected in many ways. For example, the cumulative time that office workers spent stuck in elevators in the past 12 months totaled 33 years across the 16 cities, according to the report.
Nationwide, only 33 percent rated their office buildings “somewhat high,” “very high” or “extremely high” in terms of environmental responsibility. And 65 percent say they would participate in the redesign of the workspace in their office buildings to make them more environmentally responsible.
The complete report is available online.
