Another method used is the “Shame” method. This is where a facility owner is faced with the moral choice of paying more and having a sustainable building or having baby seal pups die in the Arctic Circle. Too often building owners have to answer to share holders who are obligated to look at the bottom line.

If Architects and Engineers want to push a Sustainable agenda, they need to start speaking in the language of building owners. The green in their language deals with dollars and cents not bamboo flooring and recycled content.

The federal building program for the U.S. Forest Service takes a hard look at life-cycle cost analysis to help them make decisions on how the building should be designed. Their report can be found here:

http://www.fs.fed.us/eng/pubs/htmlpubs/htm08732839/page01.htm

Most typical life-cycle analyses look at the initial capital cost versus the operating cost over a fixed amount of time. This will often give them a ‘pay-back’ time that would equate to the operating dollars saved versus the initial cost premium.

The report states that in a simple analysis of a building with a 30-year life span, the operating costs are typically one and a half times the cost of initial construction. It also states that salaries and benefits of employees over that same 30-year period are 18 times the initial cost of construction. Since employee productivity is affected by the quality of their workspace, it should be considered the most important factor when evaluating the effectiveness of any building design.

Knowing this, architects and engineers need to better frame their design decisions to reflect this data. They also have to be more effective in relaying this data to property owners. We need to remind the owners of the human elements that happen after the building is open and how the design can affect employee productivity, retention and well-being.

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