Health is the new green

“Until now, traditional interior design has been trend and style driven, offering visual enhancement to a space that is largely driven by budgetary requirements”, says Marloes Reinink of Solid Green Consulting. “The move towards sustainable interior design focuses on healthy spaces where people can be happy and more productive. It’s an approach that integrates work with life; incorporating activity-based design together with environmental considerations.”

The Solid Green offices – green wall and views

From a developer or building owner’s perspective, it makes business sense to provide tenants with a green building because rentals and occupancy rates are higher, resulting in a rapid ROI. Having said that, a green building is not necessarily a healthy building. Tenants are usually more interested in occupying healthy spaces that promote well-being and increased productivity, that are good for their corporate image and contribute towards retaining talent.

What the data shows

A recent study entitled ‘The Dollars and Sense of Green Retrofits’ (Deloitte and Charles Lockwood) cites the primary motives for implementing green interiors as greater indoor air and environmental quality, which speaks directly to health, well-being and corporate environmental commitment.

Reinink observes that the expenses of an average company are broken down as follows: 90% staff costs (salaries and benefits); 9% rental cost; and 1% energy costs. So spending R1 million to save 50% of your energy cost would have a smaller benefit than using the same budget to create a space that makes a 1% difference in staff productivity.

Studies also show that hospitals which provide outside views for patients result in an 8.5% quicker release rate than hospitals with no views outdoors. In call centres with outside views, employees process calls 6–12% faster than centres without views.

Standard Bank, Century City Branch

While the data is now available to support the case for well-being and productivity, concerns still abide around the cost of greening indoor spaces. However, research now indicates that, while the perceived additional cost over a conventional space is 0.9–29% more, the actual cost is in fact between a 0.4% saving and a 12.5% additional cost – depending on the design and systems implemented.

Reinink says:

The earlier you start in the process, the more cost effective it will be. The later you get involved, the more difficult it is to implement new systems and fewer options are available. Some of the ways in which costs can be cut are by integrating sustainable principles in the design from the outset, identifying costs as soon as possible, and drawing up a green budget.

Costs associated with greening interior spaces are the fees for consultants (such as for a Green Star SA Accredited Professional, commissioning and acoustics engineers), registration and submission fees for Green Star SA certification to the GBCSA (and/or other certifications if required), the capital cost of the project and ongoing maintenance costs.

Certification tools

Of the different certification tools available, the Green Star SA Interiors tool differs from the Green Star SA Office tool in that the primary categories are Indoor Air Quality and Materials, whereas the Office tool is weighted heavily in favour of Energy and Water consumption. Also, the Interiors certification is an As-Built rating only, because the time spent planning and implementing an interiors project is short – this puts additional pressure on design consultants to make timeous and correct decisions.

In addition to the Green Star SA Interiors tool, other programmes that may be pursued are the LEED Commercial Interiors certification, the Living Building Challenge, and the WELL Building Standard.

Reinink explains that the Living Building Challenge is the ultimate sustainability rating for interiors. The programme uses the metaphor (and logo) of a flower to define its criteria. Any project seeking a WELL certification has to meet all these criteria – that is, the project has to:

• be rooted in its place by adapting to climate and site (Site);
• be energy neutral by generating all its own power (Energy);
• be water neutral by harvesting all its own water (Water);
• operate pollution-free (Indoor quality);
• comprise integrated systems, with all materials being healthy and non-toxic (Materials); and
• be beautiful and inspiring.

The WELL Standard has a different focus, which is the health and well-being of people in a space, rather than the construction and performance of a building. The intention is to implement, validate and measure features that support and advance human health and wellness. Here the criteria are Air, Water, Fitness, Light, Nourishment, Comfort, and Mind.

The South African scene

In South Africa, eight projects have been certified to date under the Green Star SA Interiors rating tool: Virgin Active on Alice Lane in Sandton, Standard Bank Kuruman, Standard Bank Century City, Standard Bank Simmonds Street, Google Jozi, Earthworks Offices Cape Town, the GBCSA Offices Cape Town, and Solid Green’s office in Rosebank, Johannesburg.

The Google Office, Johannesburg

Probably the most challenging of these projects was the Google Head Office in Bryanston, which: achieved a 5-Star Green Star SA Interiors v1 certification; is targeting a LEED Gold for Commercial Interiors v2009; and had to adhere to the company’s stringent Healthy Materials Program, which aims to eliminate any toxins related to a fitout, such as formaldehyde and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In 2015, the project won the International Green Interior Award 2015, selected from winners across categories that included Office, Residential, Retail, Education, Hospitality, Healthcare, Aged Care, Product Innovation and Students.

The top achiever to date is Solid Green’s own office – which was awarded a LEED Platinum certification for Commercial Interiors and the first 6-Star Green Star SA Interiors v1 certification, and won the Highest Rated Building category at the Green Star SA Leadership Awards in 2016. Reinink comments:

We wanted to create a space which is energy and water efficient, but more importantly, a space where our staff can thrive and enjoy what they are doing. Our offices are filled with natural daylight and natural ventilation, and incorporate elements of biophilic design, all critical elements to a healthy indoor environment.

The Green Star SA Interiors tool is rated under nine categories: Management, Land use and Ecology, Transport, Indoor Environmental Quality, Water, Emissions, Energy, Materials and Innovation. The tool also offers an option for pre-certification of several similar projects within one submission. So, if a bank or a chain store has a portfolio of properties, some of the credits can be pre-approved, making future submissions easier.

The Solid Green boardroom

Standard Bank, for example, is doing a lot in terms of its building portfolio. To date, the bank has achieved 5-star Green Star SA Office v1 Design and As-built certifications for: its head office in Rosebank, Johannesburg; a 4-Star Green Star SA Existing Building Performance Pilot certification for its Global Leadership Centre in Morningside; a 5-Star Green Star SA Interiors Pilot certification for the renovation of its 3 Simmonds Street offices; and has started the journey on greening its branches – with three certified in 2016 and ten more registered for certification in 2017.

Standard Bank, 3 Simmonds Road branch

Greening the future

And so, through the development and accessibility of various certification tools, healthy and sustainable interior design principles are being adopted as a matter of course, driven by leaders in the property sector.

The post Trend Analysis: Greening Interiors appeared first on Solid Green Consulting.

On the financial side, it is becoming common knowledge that investing in the health and well-being of people is a better investment, with better returns, than investing in energy efficiency. A company spends about 1–2% of its expenditure on its energy bill and about 80% on salaries. So the effect of a 1% improvement in the productivity of its employees and the related return on investment is thus far more meaningful than a 50% saving on the energy bill.

Despite the preferred marketing pitch these days for green buildings, what we have to realise is that these projects are not definitionally healthy buildings, and the green measures taken won’t necessarily increase the productivity of occupant workforces.

The health impact of buildings is largely dependent on a number of design inclusions that address improvement of the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ). These include daylight, fresh air, thermal comfort and views. It is worth noting that a building can achieve a Green Star certification without focusing on IEQ because Green Star certification is all about balance. For example, while some projects focus more on energy efficiency, others are well located and score lots of points for accessibility to public transport. Therefore, if a project does not focus on the IEQ credits and only on its Green Star Certification, it is unlikely that the people in that building will be more productive or healthier than people in a conventional building.

There is also a growing recognition of the benefits of accommodating ‘biophilia’ in our building designs. Biophilia works around the fact that humans have an innate attraction to nature. Connecting with nature reduces stress, enhances creativity and improves well-being. Research suggests that workers in office environments with natural elements report a 15% higher level of well-being, are 6% more productive and are 15% more creative. Environmental features can be expressed through colour, water, air, sunlight, plants and views.

One of the top five biophilic elements most wanting in offices is natural light. What is quite disturbing is that natural light is often not a consideration in green buildings. Only a third of the Green Star SA buildings in South Africa target the daylight credit, with aesthetics still taking first priority in building design. There is also an abiding misperception in the South African market that fully glazed buildings that provide lots of light are equivalent to green buildings. This type of design actually works against all green principles. In our climate – hot and sunny all year round – too much glass creates greenhouses that need massive air-conditioning systems to remove heat from the building. In addition, to minimise heat gains, the glass needs to be of higher quality (which is more expensive) and to be tinted (which kills the benefits of natural daylight).

Recently, the WELL Standard was developed and launched. This is the world’s first building standard that focuses solely on human health and wellness. The standard was developed over seven years in collaboration with scientists, doctors and architects. It addresses seven categories relevant to health in buildings, namely Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Fitness, Comfort and Mind.  It is a performance-based certification system, meaning that the building has to be in operation for at least a year to be able to justify the initiatives.

There is a list of more than a hundred initiatives that can be targeted, among others: air filtration management (air); fundamental water quality (water); provision of fruit and vegetables (nourishment); circadian lighting design (light); physical-activity spaces (fitness); ergonomics (comfort); and healthy sleep policy (mind). All the initiatives have a positive relation to health and well-being and, therefore, a positive influence on the productivity of employees.

Case studies piloting the WELL Standard are: 1) the Macquarie Bank at One Shelley Street in Australia, an 11-storey building completed in 2009 that achieved world’s best practice certification and a Six Green Star rating (equivalent to LEED Platinum), and which is registered for a WELL Pilot Certification; and 2) the world’s first planned WELL Certified city district in Tampa, Florida – a 40-acre development anchored around Amalie Arena that will include: residential units; a luxury hotel; an office tower; retail, restaurant and entertainment venues; health facilities and related businesses; and public recreational spaces.

As we move towards more conscious design choices, it makes absolute sense that, if we design with people’s health and well-being in mind, green will follow suit!

Author: Marloes Reinink, Founder

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