Work from Home Wednesdays!

Washington, DC traffic has finally gotten the best of me. Well, that, and my sense of duty to the environment. I’ve started working from home one day per week. It’s a tough change for me – even though I know that telecommuting is a great way to reduce environmental impact and my boss is completely on board, I still feel a bit like a slacker for sitting at home in my sweatpants with my cat clawing my feet as I work away (she only looks sweet & innocent).

The major disadvantage for me (besides worrying about being perceived as a slacker) is the ability to track down the folks I need. When I’m in the office and I need to talk to someone, I can always go right over to their desk. If I’m at home, I can’t tell if they are available or not and have to rely on them checking voicemail and email regularly.

I think that having instant messenger (AIM, G-Talk, MSN Messenger, Office Communicator, etc.) available to the entire office would help with both of these issues. IM would at least allow me to see if people are at least on their computer, and they can see that I’m at mine. Also, it allows for shooting over a quick question/comment without having to have an entire conversation.

That said, there are many green pros of working from home:

• No need to drive = fewer miles on the road, less wear & tear on Ralph the Prius, and less gas used
• No need to shower and blow dry hair = less water and energy use
• No need to dress up = fewer clothes to wash, dry, and iron or dryclean
• No need for dog walker = less miles she’s putting on the road + less expensive for me
• Desk next to window = happier Millennial 4 Earth + less need for electric lights
• Temperature control = no need for space heater since I have blankets available
• Not at my desk = people only bother me when they really need me
• No particularly delicious lunch joints nearby = healthier eating, less spending money, and less food in my fridge rotting from not eating it.

What are your experiences?

'Green'-generation facilities management software

Massachusetts-based People Cube make scheduling software, used by thousands of big companies including General Motors and Procter & Gamble, to reserve physical resources such as conference rooms, hoteling space and teleconferencing facilities.

About five years ago, according to CEO John Anderson, the company began selling its system as a way to allocate “hoteling” / "hot desking" space inside companies where mobile workers might need a desk just for one day. Then PeopleCube engineers realized that they could link the hot-desk scheduler into office buildings’ environmental management systems, so that lighting, heating, or cooling could be adjusted to comfortable levels on floors where the hoteling space was filling up and turned down to save energy on floors with lots of empty cubicles.

Now PeopleCube has taken this one step further and partnered with a U.K. consultancy called Building Sustainability Ltd. to add a 'carbon dashboard' to the scheduler, so that facilities managers can see exactly how much carbon dioxide is not being emitted into the atmosphere thanks to their scheduling efforts.

This is an example of how resource management technologies that companies pursue primarily to save money can also contribute to efforts to arrest the development of global climate change.

By adopting a 'hoteling' / 'hot-desking' work style is also a boost for the corporate PR agenda of companies, as they acquire a "green sheen" by reducing the amount of real estate they have to heat or cool, which reduces their carbon footprint.

For more information on this, and further discussion on the difficulties of benchmarking your baseline emissions, which is key to this software, click here.

Fit Club

"The first rule of fit club is that you DO NOT talk about fit club." Oh wait, that's fight club....

Fit club, well, we can talk about that. Our firm, like many architecture firms, has lots of vendors come in and do presentations about their products and services. Usually these are accompanied by lots of food, sometimes wine or beer for an afternoon presentation. One vendor had a great idea: in addition to marketing their sustainable products and developing relationships with designers, they would also help designers treat their bodies sustainably.

ALKS, a commercial flooring vendor, hosts a monthly fit club at Washington, DC's Sports Club LA. In addition to free use of the VERY nice gym, designers can enroll in a corporate spin class, participate in one of the club's standard classes (yoga, dance, etc), and enjoy the pool, sauna, basketball court, etc. Following fit club, designers are welcomed to a healthy happy hour where ALKS educates us on their product over smoothies.

I love the concept of promoting health and wish more learning events could be like fit club.

Corporate Social Responsibility Pays

If you need proof that paying attention to corporate social responsibility creates value in your company... look no further! Two studies have just come out that prove just that.

The Economist Intelligence Unit's report, "Doing good: Business and the sustainability challenge" [PDF], surveyed 1,254 senior business executives to find out how, if at all, stock performance correlates to CSR performance:

"There is a link between corporate sustainability and strong share price performance. In our survey, companies with the highest share price growth over the past three years paid more attention to sustainability issues, while those with the worst performance tended to do less. Causality is difficult to establish, but the link appears clear: the companies that rated their efforts most highly over this time period saw annual profit increases of 16% and share price growth of 45%, whereas those that ranked themselves worst reported growth of 7% and 12% respectively. In general, these high-performingcompanies put a much greater emphasis on social and environmental considerations at board level, while the poorly performing firms are far more likely to have nobody in charge of sustainability issues."

IBM's "Attaining Sustainable Growth Through Corporate Social Responsibility," surveyed 250 business leaders and found that 68 percent of them are currently engaged in CSR practices, and shows that they can be potentially revenue-enhancing operations.

"A growing body of evidence asserts that corporations can do well by doing good. Well-known companies have already proven that they can differentiate their brands and reputations, as well as their products and services, if they take responsibility for the well-being of the societies and environments in which they operate. These companies are practicing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in a manner that generates significant returns to their businesses."

The CSR Value Curve (pictured above) shows how IBM is tracking organizations as they learn to integrate social responsibility into their value chain. It just makes sense! Organizations that think more holistically about risk avoidance and are open to new means of value creation are going to be more successful. Period.

Caffeine Fix!

I’m not a huge coffee drinker, but every once in a while I get in the mood for a “fancy coffee”…which usually results in a run to Starbucks, Dean & Deluca, or the coffee shop in the mall. Sometimes I remember to bring an old cup sleeve/coffee cozy. Sometimes I don’t. And since I’m not a regular coffee drinker, I don’t have a reusable travel mug.

Our office has a coffee machine and reusable mugs (yay on the cups), but I hesitate to use it. Why? Well, the coffee (even the cappuccino and hot cocoa options) is pretty bad. And it uses little individual metal/plastic packets for each cup. In the case of cappuccino, it takes two packets per cup. While these may be recyclable, they are not something we can throw in our standard mixed plastic/glass/metal recycling pick up…which means they go in the trash.

In an office of 140 people, this results in a lot of waste. Or trips to the “fancy coffee” store in the case of the coffee snobs – which also results in a lot of waste because many people don’t remember their reusable mugs.

What are the solutions? Well, a better coffee option at work might help. Here are a couple of suggestions:

• Get a barista machine and provide higher-end coffee
• Add a staffed barista kiosk available in the office part time
• Provide travel mugs and encourage employees to use them
• Provide exclusively organic free-trade coffee – locally grown if possible
• Brew large pots in a standard drip coffee maker and compost the grounds
• Use sugar and cream dispensers rather than individual packets

Would these be more sustainable options? Possibly, depending upon implementation. It’s definitely worth thinking about.

Green Workplaces Increase Productivity

If any of you are wondering... has it ever been really proven that a green workplace is a productive one? The answer is YES! There have been studies galore, from places like Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley and University of Michigan just to name a few.

For those of us in the design world, the idea that green workplaces are productive seems pretty intuitive, but we're finally at the point where we can point to quantitative research. So what are the findings specifically? A productive workplace includes the following:

1. Views to nature and gardens. It's one of those physiological things, but the ability for humans to view plants and trees (either indoors or outside) effectively relaxes the mind. The ability to quickly look away from your computer screen (even for a few seconds) and glance at a plant or landscape provides the right mental "break" to keeps you productive throughout the day.

2. Daylight and sunlight. Germany and other countries are way ahead of the U.S. on this one. They've written access to daylight into their building codes (no person can be so many feet away from the window). In the U.S., LEED gives credit to spaces that provide windows 15' or less from where people are sitting. What is important about this access to natural light is the change in lighting levels during the day. Noticing that "it's light vs. dark outside" plus visual access to the weather provide stimulation and awareness of nature.

3. Sensory change and variability. Miles and miles of vanilla-colored workstations that are all the same height and appearance, as a rule, does not support productivity - particularly for an organization that requires creativity as part of its value proposition. A lack of visual stimulation during the day dulls the senses and affects our ability to stay alert. Changes in color, lighting, texture, spatial volume, etc. are important to keep the brain stimulated.

4. Personal control. How many space heaters and fans are hiding under desks in your office? I can't tell you how many buildings I've been through where the facility staff keeps the VAV boxes on the wall, but then "turn them off" because of the large number of hot/cold complaints they get every day. This solution keeps their phone from ringing, but leads to frustration that makes everybody miserable! Turns out, everyone has a slightly different idea of what is comfortable, and to keep us all at our productive best, individual control of the environment is critical. And it's not just temperature and air flow; individuals need control over noise, lighting, desk height, monitor color, keyboard button location, chair adjustability, etc.

5. Regular exercise. Most of us "knowledge workers" spend a lot of time staring at a computer and not a lot of our day moving around. But guess what? All those annoying fitness instructors are right. Exercise makes us more productive and keeps our minds active. Buildings can help with well designed stairs and access to showers, bike racks, jogging trails, weight rooms, etc.

Is that it? No... this is only the tip of the iceberg! There are several other key factors to consider including indoor air quality, low toxicity in building materials, artificial lighting that reduces glare, etc. Here are some great resources to learn more:

Green Buildings, Organizational Success, and Occupant Productivity by Judith H. Heerwagen, Ph.D.

Elements of Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science, and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life by Stephen R. Kellert, Judith Heerwagen, Martin Mador

Designing the Office of the Future: The Japanese Approach to Tomorrow's WorkPlace by Volker Hartkopf, Vivian Loftness, Pleasantine Drake, Fred Dubin, Peter Mill