In my last article “what stops us from pursuing higher IAQ”, the cost and impact can be a small part of the reason, but what really stops us is that we don’t know what IAQ can do for us.
So in this text, I will talk about Cognition & Productivity.
Cognition,
It can be described as below:
From “A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments, by Joseph G. Allen, Piers MacNaughton, Usha Satish, Suresh Santanam, Jose Vallarino, and John D. Spengler”
These functions are to be tested in three conditions: Conventional (CO2 concentration 945PPM, TVOCs 500-600μg/m³, 20CFM/person), Green (CO2 concentration 700PPM, TVOCs 50μg/m³, 20CFM/person) and Green+ (CO2 concentration 500PPM, TVOCs 40μg/m³, 40CFM/person).
Result as below:
From “A Controlled Exposure Study of Green and Conventional Office Environments, by Joseph G. Allen, Piers MacNaughton, Usha Satish, Suresh Santanam, Jose Vallarino, and John D. Spengler”
Cognitive function scores were higher under the Green building condition than under the Conventional building condition for all nine functional domains. On average, cognitive scores were 61% higher on the Green building day and 101% higher on the two Green+ building days than on the Conventional building day.
Being more cognitive at work will be meaning that they have better performance, which can be translated to higher productivity.
A research in US shows that when these percentiles were compared to the distribution of office worker salaries, they corresponded to a salary of $57,660 and $64,160 respectively, a difference of $6500. When the occupational data was subjected to management occupations, the difference in salaries at these percentiles was $15,500.
From “Economic, Environmental and Health Implications of Enhanced Ventilation in Office Buildings, by Piers MacNaughton, James Pegues, Usha Satish, Suresh Santanam, John Spengler and Joseph Allen”
Moreover, the risk of sick leaves, illness, influenza and pneumonia have not been taken into consideration yet. These will also have additional impacts to cognition and productivity.
In conclusion, even with conservative estimates, the increased productivity of an employee is over 100 times greater than the upgrading costs.
For the next article, we will talk about IAQ vs Health!
Thank you!
