Green occupants for green buildings: The missing link?

This paper follows the results of recent post-occupancy evaluation surveys within two office buildings at Macquarie University, Sydney Australia. Supplemented with an environmental attitudes questionnaire, based upon the New Ecological Paradigm (Dunlap et al. 2000), it was found that occupant satisfaction levels are positively associated with environmental beliefs. Occupants with higher levels of environmental concern were more tolerant of their building, particularly those featuring aspects of green design, such as naturally-ventilated façades and operable windows. Despite their criticisms of the building's indoor environmental quality, the 'green' occupants were prepared to overlook and forgive less-than-ideal conditions more so than their 'brown' (non-green) counterparts. Drawing upon these results, statistical analyses of the association between environmental beliefs and occupant satisfaction in this paper support the hypothesis that broad environmental attitudes are closely associated with the stronger 'forgiveness factor' often observed in green-intent buildings.