Occupants’ perceptions and expectations of a green office building: a longitudinal case study

Sustainability as a concept can become devalued if occupants’ engagements with a building are not satisfactory. This article investigated how occupants’ attitudes towards a building's ‘green’ identity interacted with the building's performance and the occupants’ overall satisfaction of the building. The research is based on a longitudinal study of nearly 2000 staff working in two UK Government office buildings that had received BREEAM ‘Excellent’ ratings. The research programme involved interviews and repeated surveys over a 2-year period. The results indicate how the gap between occupants’ expectations and their perceptions of a green building can affect their satisfaction with the building. Furthermore, it is shown that occupants’ disengagement with the building's green identity can also, eventually, impact on the building's sustainable performance.