Association Of In-door Environment Of Green Buildings With Occupants’ Health And Wellbeing
of the Research
The issue of occupants’ health and safety is equally important for residential as well as commercial buildings. It is of no doubt that major portion of human lives is being spent in the buildings, which has reinforced by the study of Gambatese, Rajendran and Behm (2007) stating that on average modern people spend 80 to 90 percent of their whole day (24 hours) in buildings (in-door). Based on this notion, the quality of in-door environment and sustainability of buildings is of critical concern for both research and practice. The poor quality of in-door environment can cause significant harm to the health and wellbeing of residents both physically as well as psychologically. It has been highlighted in the study that 68% of human diseases are caused by the low quality in-door environment and poor quality of in-door air (Leaman and Bordass, 2007). The most common diseases are respiratory allergies, asthma and depression. Along with this, the poor quality of in-door environment and pollution within building causes skin aging, hair shedding and loss, fatigue, leukaemia, infertility and cancer. It has further offered by Chuck and Kim (2011) that 2% of chronic diseases, 37% respiratory diseases, 5% leukaemia and 5% bronchial diseases are caused by the poor air quality in buildings. This increasing rate of diseases caused by in-door pollution and poor quality of in-door air calls for an immediate attention to the social sustainability issue in design and construction of residential and commercial buildings.The disastrous impacts of in-door environment quality has motivated the researcher to conduct current research with an aim of suggesting improvements in sustainable buildings.
Along with the catastrophic influences of in-door environment on health of the occupants, there in increased awareness among occupants regarding sustainability of buildings (Hwang and Kim, 2010). The emergence of social aspects of buildings has increased the concern of occupants about their health and wellbeing in long run. Due to this enhanced concern of sustainability, the construction sector is compelled to maintain high quality in-door environment of buildings. The increasing importance of green buildings and in-door environmental quality has motivated the researcher to carry out a study on association of in-door environment of green building with occupants’ health and wellbeing (Bluyssen, 2013).
Along with this, it is note able from the research that cost of economy is rising due to sick leaves long term illnesses of people who are being employed by organisations. In UK, the cost of sick leave has reported to be equal to 14 billion per year, which is burdening the economy (Ries et al., 2006). Therefore, in order to lower the burden of health cost from nation, the increasing importance has offered to concept of green buildings. The current study will deeply investigate the impact of in-door environment of green buildings on occupants’ health and wellbeing and it will serve as reinforcement for practitioners to focus on aspect of sustainability of buildings.
Followed by this, the notion of informed occupants is also emerging now a days. The informed occupants’ phenomenon provides that with advancement in technology the people are able to track the environmental performance of buildings (Rajendran, Gambatese and Behm, 2009). The ability of individuals to measure the health prospects of buildings in real time is laying pressure on construction industry to incorporate aspect of sustainability into construction of buildings. The contemporary occupants are empowered and they can refuse to live in buildings that have lower health prospects (Shiers, 2000). Therefore, the research on health and wellbeing issues due to building environment is mandatory to assist the practitioners for construction sector. The current study has aimed to pursue a real issue from construction industry and it will offer significant implications to industry gurus for promoting better health prospects based on green buildings.
1.Significance of Research
The current research study will contribute significantly to research and practice of sustainable buildings and its impact on occupants’ health and wellbeing. The current study will investigate all criteria of In-door Environment Quality (IEQ) including; thermal, visual, acoustic and in-door air quality. The current study will separately analyse the association of all criteria with occupant’s health and wellbeing, which will offer significant contribution in the stream of growing literature. The findings of the study will assist the practitioners to design their buildings in the way that may help them to increase the comfort and health prospects of occupants.