Healthier buildings can produce significant economic gains: IWBI report

By helping to boost productivity and well-being, healthy building solutions can pay off with significant financial gains, according to a report by the International Well Building Institute (IWBI).

Reducing Sick Building Syndrome symptoms by 20% to 50% among office workers in the U.S. can produce an annual productivity gain of up to $200 billion, the report says. An estimated $38 billion in annual economic benefits can result from increasing minimum ventilation rates in U.S. offices from 8 to 15 liters per second.

Improvements to air quality, thermal comfort, and lighting generate a health-related net present value (NPV) of $2 million in one building over 10 years, which is more than 45 times the energy-related NPV of $44,000 for those same measures. Better ventilation, lighting and environmental quality results in an NPV of $37 to $55 per square foot due to productivity gains from less sick time and greater worker productivity.

Enhanced indoor environmental quality improves cognitive function by 61% to 101%, depending on the extent of improvements. In primary and secondary schools, improved indoor air quality in the form of reduced CO2 concentration, improves student learning performance by 5% and daily attendance by 2.5%.

Biophilic design boosts employee productivity, generating an additional $36,471 per employee per year, the equivalent of more than $7 million in additional revenue for a 200-worker enterprise.