June 24, 2005—Are occupants more satisfied in LEED buildings than in conventional buildings? This would seem to be a critical question for LEED users, if not for the green building community as a whole, given the connection between occupant satisfaction and the economic benefits of productivity and well-being.
One of the most promising sources of information is the occupant satisfaction survey tool from the University of California at Berkeleys Center for the Built Environment (CBE).
CBE does not reveal the identity of any project in its database, except with explicit permission from the owner. In the charts, LEED projects are identified by circles, among the overall data set of about 180 projects. The projects are primarily office buildings, according to Charlie Huizenga, a research specialist at CBE. Many, but not all, are newly constructed.
The charts reveal that, at least for this limited data set, occupants rate the air quality and thermal comfort of their LEED buildings quite highly but feel mixed about the lighting and are generally dissatisfied with the acoustics. Interestingly, occupants gave their overall building a higher rating than they gave their overall workspace.
For more information, visit the Web site of the Center for the Built Environment.
