Building occupancy certification: development on an approach to assess building occupancy

Improving energy efficiency in commercial buildings is of great importance, given the
large percentage of energy consumed in the sector. However, the incentives to save
energy in these environments are unusual. From the perspective of managers, energy
consumption is only a very small part of the financial burden of companies in
comparison to materials, rent or salaries, and thus, economic incentives have a low
impact in these environments. On the one hand, unlike in home environments,
occupants of office building do not see a direct financial effect on their energy related
occupancy practices, as so, their incentive is also not a monetary one. Thus, to
effectively reduce energy consumption in office buildings, a different approach should
be followed. The Building Occupancy Certification System (BOCS) project aims at
developing a building evaluation system focused on the building’s occupancy instead
of its technical or physical characteristics. The objective of BOCS is the reduction of
energy consumption in office buildings while improving indoor conditions. In this
regard, the improvement of indoor conditions and thus, productivity, is the incentive for
company managers and staff to implement the BOCS system. Though, keeping
environmental awareness visible in the agenda. This paper presents the preliminary
results from the first BOCS pilot study in the Netherlands, regarding the building
performance in terms of thermal comfort and indoor environmental quality. This study
focuses on the data collection and analysis.
Keywords:
Building occupancy; office buildings; monitoring; thermal comfort