Wellbeing

Contact Research, Investigations & Test

Sustainable buildings provide benefits to the environment, society and economy (also known as planet, people and profit) and create win-win-win situations. In other words, a sustainable building should help to reduce carbon emissions, provide a safe, healthy, comfortable and stimulating environment and help to improve satisfaction and productivity of the users.

The quality of a building can have a huge impact on the health and wellbeing of the occupants. A building's Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is determined by five factors:

  • thermal comfort
  • indoor air quality
  • odours
  • sound levels
  • light levels

There are quantitative measures which may include:

  • Air quality (for pollutants and moisture/odour etc.)
  • Air movement
  • Ventilation (in terms of fresh air and temperatures)
  • Noise levels (external, internal from staff and internal from assets)
  • Light and glare
  • Temperature and responsiveness of building and controls
  • Management of building services (complaints etc.)

And qualitative measures:

  • Perceived comfort and health from surveys of occupants
  • Inferred information on stress and ease of use of spaces (controls, access etc)
  • Sickness records

BSRIA provides a number of services that can positively change the built environment to improve the wellbeing of occupants. These include:

Building performance evaluation

Independent building performance and post-occupancy evaluation services

Soft Landings guides

Soft Landings guides including Framework and Core Principles (free download for BSRIA Members)