Enhanced Life-Cycle Cost Analysis of Sustainable Office Buildings

摘要

This paper proposes a methodology for enhancing the Life Cycle Cost Analysis of office buildings by accountingfor tangible improvements in office workers performance and therefore in the employer's bottom line due to sustainable building features. There is a good correlation between indoor environmental quality and higher worker productivity, wellbeing, job satisfaction, and reduced absenteeism all of which help to attract and retain employees. Sustainable buildings contribute to the bottom line for building occupants. Sustainable building features add a prestige associated with buildings certified to high sustainability levels, increase the building's market value, increase its rentability, and draw higher rent. This paper presents an enhanced Life Cycle Cost Analysis of a typical middle size office building in three different international locations with a mature market for sustainable buildings. This analysis uses representative European Union and North America ranges of energy and labor costs, construction costs, andrents, for both sustainable and standard office buildings; and assumes a minimum required productivity increase of 2%, to show that, for each case analyzed, it is always cost effective to occupy a sustainable office space or building, whether rented or owned. Depending on the market, it can be profitable to build a sustainable office building for lease to multiple clients by charging rental rates only 2% to 10% higher than rents charged for conventional spaces. This paper concludes that the life cycle cost analysis must account for office labor cost savings resulting from sustainable building features.