Page 61 - Green Building Through Integrated Design

38 GREEN BUILDINGS TODAY

to regulate ventilation according to occupancy. With so many building occupants
today having breathing problems and chemical sensitivities, it just makes good busi-
ness sense to provide a healthy building. Documentation of these measures can often
help provide extra backup when fighting claims of “sick building syndrome.” This
benefit of “risk management” is an often overlooked aspect of green building guide-
lines, but can often be useful to demonstrate to prospective tenants or occupants the
often “invisible” measures taken by building designers and contractors to provide a
safe and healthy indoor environment.
Healthy buildings incorporate daylighting and views to the outdoors not only for
occupant comfort, health, and productivity gains (Fig. 2.7), but also to reduce energy
costs. There is a growing body of evidence that daylighting, operable windows, and
views to the outdoors can increase productivity from 5 to 15 percent and reduce ill-
ness, absenteeism, and employee turnover for many companies.* Throw in higher lev-
els of building controls that allow for such things as carbon dioxide monitoring and
demand-controlled ventilation adjustments, for example, and one has an effective pro-
gram addressing the “people problem” that can be sold to prospective tenants and

Figure 2.7 Annual health gains from air quality improvements.
TM
Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, Carnegie Mellon University. BIDS : Building Investment
Decision Support Tool

*See for example, studies by the Heschong Mahone Group for Pacific Gas & Electric Company and the
California Energy Commission, available at www.h-m-g.com, accessed July 31, 2008.