Call for a definition and paradigm shift in energy performance gap research

There is a growing interest in research dealing with energy performance gaps of buildings. Energy performance gaps are usually defined as the difference between energy demand as predicted during the planning phase and energy demand as measured during operation. It is assumed that the research strand, by reducing such gaps, contributes to the United Nations SDGs 7 (clean energy), 11 (sustainable cities) and 13 (climate action). However, in this conceptual article based on literature review we argue that blind spots in the current definition of energy performance gap research (embodied energy, gap between optimal and planned energy performance, greenhouse gas emissions, dynamic character) and weaknesses of frequently used scientific paradigms (techno-economic, psychological) may lead to the fact that the measures identified to eliminate energy wasting and climate-damaging practices are of limited value. In fact, it is quite possible that conventional energy performance gap research even contributes to perpetuating such practices. The authors therefore call for a definition and paradigm shift in energy performance gap research, suggesting two broader definitions of the research subject (called life cycle energy performance gaps and climate performance gaps) and a promising alternative scientific paradigm (practice theory)

Field study of natural, mechanical and hybrid ventilation systems of 27 office buildings in the temperate zone country Switzerland

Analyses in this study focus on characteristics of three different clusters of ventilation for office buildings. These comprise natural, mechanical and hybrid ventilation. In a major project study, extensive data was collected from 27 office buildings. Besides physically measurable parameters, psycho-social-oriented surveys of building users and information about building-specific constructional or building technology were compiled. In a selection, results of indoor air quality (IAQ) and indoor environment quality (IEQ) were compared with current standards. Thom’s Discomfort Index (DI) suggested that, for all three clusters, populations feeling discomfort are to be expected during the summer months. Responses for certain aspects corresponding to IEQ and IAQ showed a remarkable seasonal divergence of satisfaction with air temperature for naturally ventilated buildings. The appearance of stagnant air is found to occur in its strongest form in naturally and hybrid ventilated buildings. Mechanically ventilated buildings were reported as having the lowest values for satisfaction with air humidity in winter. Each ventilation system comprises characteristic advantages and disadvantages. A tendency might favour, at least seasonally, mechanically or hybrid ventilated buildings. Differences between these two systems are not significant in this sample. The result raises the question of how much technical effort is actually necessary to provide satisfactory ventilation

Klimaduell – das Klima gewinnt

Teil des Sustainable Campus Living Lab - CAMPUS@LSFM: https://www.zhaw.ch/de/lsfm/forschung/interdisziplinaere-zusammenarbeit/sustainable-campus/Hochschulen tragen nicht nur durch Forschung, Wissensvermittlung, Dialog und Transfer zur Erreichung der Nachhaltigkeitsziele von Gesellschaften bei, sondern bereiten Studierende auf die Herausforderungen der Zukunft vor. Um die hochschuleigenen Nachhaltigkeitsziele zu erreichen und die Hochschulangehörigen auf diese gemeinsame Reise mitzunehmen, wurde das Projekt „Klimaduell“ mit dem gleichnamigen Wettbewerb am Department Life Sciences and Facility Management (LSFM) der Züricher Hochschule für angewandte Wissenschaften (ZHAW) zusammen mit der Partnerhochschule Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde (HNEE) umgesetzt. Ziel des Projektes war es, eine Massnahme zu entwicklen, die auf eine spielerische und motivierende Art möglichst viele Hochschulangehörige erreicht und einen Beitrag zur Bekämpfung des Klimawandels leistet. Es sollte ebenfalls Erkenntnisse für die Verhaltensforschung als auch für die praktische Umsetzung liefern, die genutzt werden können, um das Klimaduell als eine mögliche verbesserte und wiederholbare Massnahme im Hochschulkontext zu etablieren. Grundlage für die Gestaltung des „Klimaduell“-Wettbewerbs war u.a. eine Hotspot-Analyse, mit der die Bereiche der Hochschulen ermittelt wurden, die besonders viele Treibhausgasemissionen erzeugen. Anhand der Ergebnisse, Erkenntnissen aus der Literatur und Auflagen in der Machbarkeit wurden 14 Challenges entwickelt, die zur Umsetzung verschiedener klimarelevanter Verhaltensweisen auf dem Campus und/oder im Home-Office-Alltag motivieren sollten und über einen Zeitraum von 6 Wochen sequenziell stattfanden. Ein interaktives online-Start- und Schluss-Event bildeten den Rahmen. Herzstück bildete eine mobile, Drupal-basierte Webseite, über die die Anmeldung und Kommunikation mit den Teilnehmenden bewerkstelligt wurde. Zur Berechnung der Treibhausgasemmissionen, der in den Challenges propagierten Verhaltensänderungen und zur Evaluation des Projektes, wurden die Teilnehmenden anhand von Online-Umfragen befragt. Mit Durchführung des Klimaduells als challenge-basierte, gamifizierte Massnahme, wurden mit insgesamt 375 Teilnehmenden 2.3 t CO2-eq eingespart. Die meisten Einsparungen wurden mit der Challenge «Reparieren» und «Vegan essen» erreicht. Die Challenge «Hahnenwasser trinken» hatte die höchste Teilnehmerquote (N = 156). Insbesondere Verhaltensweisen, deren Integration in den Alltag wenig Aufwand bedeuten und kaum einschränken, haben das Potenzial auch über den Challengezeitraum hinaus beibehalten zu werden. Rund 30 % der Teilnehmenden würde mit äussester Wahrscheinlichkeit an einer nächsten Durchführung teilnehmen. Die gewonnen Erkenntnisse und wertvollen Feedbacks zu Kommunikation, Challenge-Design und Webseite, können gezielt zur Verbessung einer erneuten Durchführung und Skalierung genutzt werde

Behave 2018 : Book of Abstracts

// Openings and Keynotes // In September 2018, more than 300 participants debated the perspectives of energy policy transition and implementation of sustainable energy technologies. At Behave 2018 (Conference on Behaviour and Energy Efficiency) in Zurich, the internationality and the interdisciplinarity of scholarship in the field were surprising and inspiring. The President of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Jean-Marc Piveteau, opened the conference by referring to the development of the ZHAW into one of the leading competence centres of applied sciences in the field of energy research in Europe. Benjamin Sovacool, Editor of “Energy Research & Social Sciences”, made a strong claim for research designs that refuse “discliplinary chauvinism” and “theoretical monogamy”. From his point of view, energy research can and should be more oriented towards real world problems and thus have to deal not only with theory, but also with policy relevance and application. The other keynote speakers were Marianne Zünd (Swiss Federal Office of Energy) and Marylin Mehlman (Co-Founder of Legacy 17). They outlined the complex and sometimes curious paths of social change towards more sustainable energy behaviours. Those paths lead us into the value systems of concerned citizens (Mehlman) and into the complex processes of democratic systems in the western world (Zünd). // On the Built Environment // Sustainability and environmental policies that increasingly target the building sector may explain why a lot of studies presented at Behave 2018 were devoted to understanding and changing behaviour related to energy use and CO2-emissions of buildings. While most research still focusses on the individual energy-relevant behaviour of private citizens, there is a small but growing interest in the decisions and actions of institutional building-owners and building professionals. Energy feedback, gamification, nudging, promoting acceptance and adoption of new technologies, science-city collaboration, alternative policies and business models were among the solutions discussed to support the energy transition. // On the Public Sphere // Within the framework of the sessions that were dedicated to communication sciences and discourse studies, scholars from all over Europe presented their investigations of media coverage, stakeholder expectations and goals, and systemic effects of focussed communication efforts. These sessions clearly showed that the challenge of changing behaviours cannot be faced by marketing measures or other isolated strategic measures. It’s rather about curating the common sense, deliberating citizens’ value systems and letting society participate in the huge project of policy transition. // On Interventions and Feedback // Much of the conference dealt with interventions concerning how to change humans’ behaviour towards more environmentally friendly actions in different sectors. A total of three different parallel sessions addressed humans’ behaviour and households. The importance of feedback was also considered in many talks during the conference. Last but not least, a session of several talks was dedicated to the transportation sector, which accounts for a large quantity of CO2-emissions. // Acknowledgement // With more than 30 sessions on these and other subjects and numerous personal discussions of the participants on the margins of the conference, Behave 2018 was a huge success. The members of the organising committee thank all participants, visitors, partners, the media and the ZHAW for their support that made this success possible

Workplace related predictors of exhaustion symptoms : results from a multi-level analysis of 26 office buildings

Purpose: Many people spend a substantial share of their life time in office buildings. In this respect office buildings influence employees’ health, work performance, and satisfaction for long periods of time. The research described in this article investigated the importance of office related aspects in relation to other aspects for understanding health, work performance, and job satisfaction of office building occupants. This paper focusses on one of the measured health outcomes (physical exhaustion symptoms) und mainly examines whether subjective evaluations (e.g. with regard to privacy or task variability) are better predictors than objective indoor environment quality indicators (e.g. noise levels, speech intelligibility, CO2). Design/Methodology/Approach: Between 2012 and 2014 more than 6000 occupants from 26 office buildings participated in a survey on their satisfaction with their office space, on their health and work performance and on several control variables. Simultaneously air, indoor environment and acoustic quality were measured (CO2, air humidity and temperature, VOC, dust, noise levels and speech intelligibility) and building features were recorded (e.g. certification, automatisation, ventilation). Subsequently, data from different sources was analysed using multi-level modelling in order to identify the most important predictors of the focused outcomes (here: exhaustion symptoms). Physical exhaustion symptoms were measured using Andersons (1998) MM-questionnaire for work environments. Findings: Dissatisfaction with aspects of the office space (perception of warm room temperature / bad air and of insufficient privacy / noise protection) are statistically significant predictors of physical exhaustion symptoms. Both office satisfaction aspects are stronger predictors of exhaustions symptoms than other statistically significant predictors relating to job characteristics (qualitative and quantitative workload, task variability, task identity). In addition older and female occupants have a higher risk of experiencing exhaustion symptoms. Objectively measured factors such as building features and indoor environment quality parameters are not statistically significant predictors of exhaustion symptoms. Practical implications: The results show that perceived opportunities for controlling one’s own level of privacy and an indoor climate that is considered adequate are a resource for preventing physical exhaustion symptoms in offices. Keeping indoor environment quality indicators within recommended ranges is one important strategy to achieve this. Nevertheless workplace managers can realize additional workplace quality potentials if they try to not only manage the office space but also the related individual perceptions and evaluations of the occupants. Structured user needs analysis, carefully conducted change management, and continuous evaluation and optimization processes are tools that help to implement such a strategy. Originality/Value: This study is original mainly with regard to the two following aspects: 1.Method: Multi-level analysis using a very large sample including subjective questionnaire and objective measurement data and data on building features (26 office buildings, more than 6000 respondents and 700000 measured data points) 2.Research question rarely discussed in the literature: Are subjective evaluations of different office aspects more important predictors of exhaustion symptoms than objectively measurable office aspects / other subjective evaluation

Die Qualität nachhaltiger Bürogebäude für die Nutzer : Nachhaltigkeit gewinnt im Immobilienbereich

Nachhaltigkeit gewinnt im Immobilienbereich zunehmend rasch an Bedeutung. Innovationen in energieoptimierte Technologien und Konstruktion verändern die ökologischen Auswirkungen von Gebäuden in Bau und Betrieb. In einem Forschungsprojekt des Instituts für Facility Management der ZHAW Wädenswil ZH wird untersucht, wie sich die Veränderungen auf die Nutzerinnen und Nutzer von Gebäuden auswirken und welche Anforderungen sich daraus für das Facility Management ergeben. zunehmend rasch an Bedeutung. Innovationen in energieoptimierte Technologien und Konstruktion verändern die ökologischen Auswirkungen von Gebäuden in Bau und Betrieb. In einem Forschungsprojekt des Instituts für Facility Management der ZHAW Wädenswil ZH wird untersucht, wie sich die Veränderungen auf die Nutzerinnen und Nutzer von Gebäuden auswirken und welche Anforderungen sich daraus für das Facility Management ergeben