Impact of Green Office Space on Worker Productivity

Very cool webinar presented by Sustainable Industries on the impact of green office spaces on worker productivity. Panelists include David Pogue, National Director of Sustainability, CB Richard Ellis (San Jose), Clark Brockman, Principal, SERA Architects (Portland), and Kirsten Ritchie, Director of Sustainable Design, Gensler (San Francisco). The panel is moderated by Becky Brun, Editor of Sustainable Industries. You can download the PDF version (HERE).




Human Impact of Green Office Spaces from Sustainable Industries on Vimeo.

Red-White-Blue & Green: GSA hires first Chief Greening Officer

Anyone who doubted that Sustainability and the Green movement are here to stay doubt no more, as the United States General Services Administration (GSA), has officially established the new position of Chief Greening Officer.

GSA, which manages over $500 BILLION in federal assets, including 9,500 government-owned or leased buildings, has been given an Executive Order by President Obama to, "lead by example in the greening and modernizing of the nation's infrastructure.

The new Chief Greening Officer will "accelerate our momentum to drive sustainability by aggressively seeking out and incorporating proven greener, more efficient building technologies and practices throughout our entire inventory of 1,500 owned and 8,000 leased buildings" said Robert A. Peck, Commissioner of Public Buildings.

This is a serious effort on behalf of the government that will pay dividends for the commercial interiors segment in a couple of ways.

1. Obvious: This focus on sustainability helps reduces the strain we are putting on our environment, and creates healthier workplaces (which equals happier government workers which we all can appreciate).
2. Not so Obvious: Increased jobs for "green tech" and "clean tech" companies, increased jobs for architects designing or re-designing LEED certified spaces, and increased purchases of quality furniture that can help contribute toward achieving LEED certification.

Some Help in Calculating LEED Credits

In the past 18 months, nearly 100% of our projects have started out with the client or specifier asking us about the "green" factor of our products. With the desire for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification becoming more and more commonplace, being able to quickly and accurately provide answers has become a critical determinant to winning projects.

Within our organization(s), (Sam Clar Office Furniture and The Commercial Services Group), we are fortunate enough to have Rachel Leaverton, a LEED Accredited Professional (AP), on-staff to assist us in navigating the path towards a LEED certified project. In addition to Rachel, we have found that the Gunlocke Company has a great new on-line resource that can also help.

Check out Gunlocke's Green Calculator to quickly find out how Gunlocke's products can help earn LEED credits towards certification.

See How Sustainable Gunlocke's Converge Product Line is with the new Green Calculator

More on Sustainable Office Furniture

Well no one can say the office furniture industry isn't concerned about the environment. The Business and Institutional Furniture Manufacturer's Association or BIFMA is beginning to certify products under their recently released sustainability standard:

BIFMA e3-2008 Furniture Sustainability Standard

BIFMA is the the industries independent governing body (the one that sets universal standards in place for products), so this certification should have some "heft" to it. I would say it will be a short period of time until this standard becomes the standard for environmentally acceptable products.

To see a recent article on who is being certified click here.