Optimising Indoor Environmental Quality: Development of a Benchmarking Tool for Valuing Performance in Office Buildings

A novel benchmarking tool, the Building Office Benchmark (BOB) tool, has been developed to evaluate the economic benefit of increased work performance by upgrading the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in office buildings. Utilising post occupancy evaluations in Danish and Greenlandic office buildings (26 buildings in Denmark and 22 buildings in Greenland comprising a total of 153 offices), a database comprising registration of building properties, measurements of IEQ parameters and occupant responses has been established. This may be used not only to benchmark the indoor environment in office buildings but also to identify suboptimal conditions and, based on this, quantify the economic benefits of indoor environment upgrades.

Informed by literature review findings, the tool’s IEQ domains and weightings of different IEQ domains and parameters align with existing certification schemes. The tool may be used to outline the economic advantages of IEQ improvements, presented straightforwardly to building owners and tenants. Overall, the tool presents a framework for assessing and improving IEQ in office environments.