Miljöcertifierade kontorslokalers betydelse för anställdas upplevda hälsa, produktivitet och image

Sammanfattning: Previous studies indicate a rental premium for environmentally certified office space. These studies also show that environmentally certified buildings experience a number of benefits in comparison with non-certified buildings. Mentioned benefits consist of improved health, productivity and image among others. The purpose of this study is to determine the impacts environmentally certified office space in Sweden might have on office employees’ assessed health, productivity and image and also to reflect if any positive effects justify a higher rent level. The empirical part of the study implements a quantitative method consisting of twelve questions in a survey. These questions were distributed by e-mail to contact persons of companies working in LEEDcertified office buildings. 84 office workers from at least four different companies responded to the survey. The chapter frame of reference contains material which will not be subject to the empirical survey but that is still deemed necessary for the context of the study and when fulfilling the purpose. The theory chapter covers previous work in the area and represents the bank of information which is to be analyzed against our empirical results. The result of the empirical survey shows a marginal improvement of assessed productivity. It also indicates that environmentally certified office space has no positive impact on sick leave. Regarding the image aspects of the survey our results show that environmental certification has different effects on the different types of image that the company emits. In the conclusions, we state that the assessed benefits found in the results are marginal and that they alone do not warrant a higher rent level. It is probable that other incentives, than those included in this study, exist and that they together with improved health, productivity and image justify a rental premium for environmentally certified office space. A possible incentive might be the fact that environmentally certified office space often tend to be newer and more modern in comparison with non-certified office space.