The Attitude Towards Reuse Within the Adaptation of Office Premises : The Effect of Nudge Through an Intervention

Sammanfattning: During the last decades the real estate and construction industry has experienced a major development regarding sustainability aspects. However, something that is often neglected when discussing sustainability within the real estate sector is the process of adapting office spaces for new tenants, in which current practice implies that perfectly fine materials are demolished and thrown out due to aesthetic demands from tenants. The purpose of this study was therefore to examine how interventions should be constructed, by the application of the theory of nudge, to influence office tenants to favor reuse instead of new materials within the process of tenant improvements. By identifying the four most crucial factors of decision-making regarding reuse from semi-structured interviews with business professionals within the real estate sector, statements were constructed and rated by individual tenants according to the seven grade Likert scale in a self-administrated questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to tenants within a property portfolio twice, before and after the tenants took part in a printed intervention in a digital format. The intervention was constructed as an information sheet concerning reuse and included four chosen tools of nudge with the purpose of positively affecting the respondent’s attitude towards reuse. By distributing the same questionnaire, the change in rating between the two questionnaires could be observed, presenting the effect of the intervention. The ratings were analyzed by a conceptual analysis of an independent-sample T test in SPSS comparing the mean values as well as additional analyses of rating distribution in Microsoft Excel. The results showed a minor, but not significant change in mean values but a noticeable change in rating distribution, especially regarding the neutral rating of 4. The intervention was able to affect the respondents both in a positive and negative manner, which indicates that there is a major knowledge gap which can be reduced by the implementation of the nudge theory. The study concludes that there are many challenges regarding the practice of reuse where landlords and tenants need to cooperate to create a practice aiming towards a more sustainable process of tenant improvements.