New NRC research shows that green buildings contribute to productivity

RBC building on Portage Avenue, Winnipeg (source: NRC)

New research, the result of a collaboration between the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), reveals that green buildings do more than reduce energy and increase real-estate value, they also have positive impacts on the employees working in them.

RBC and the NRC were able to determine the human resources benefits of building green by analyzing anonymous data on more than 40,000 RBC employees against information on more than 70 RBC office buildings.

The results show that overall, green buildings have statistically higher employee job satisfaction, higher employee engagement and organizational commitment, and higher management-assessed performance.

“Organizations inhabiting or owning buildings that are looking to meet green certification standards, such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), usually use the environmental impact and energy cost savings benefits to make the case for certification,” said Richard Tremblay, general manager of the NRC’s Construction portfolio. “Now, the NRC and RBC have developed objective methods to support the case that green buildings enhance job satisfaction and enhance indicators related to productivity as well.”

The NRC provided impartial analysis of more than 120 million records from RBC for the research.

“We are delighted to have partnered with the NRC on this ground-breaking study,” said Robert Carlyle, RBC’s senior director of strategic workforce management. “We look forward to uncovering new insights with the NRC to assist in developing physical spaces that help keep employees engaged.”