Commercial Buildings Energy Performance within Context: Occupants in Spotlight

Existing commercial buildings represent a challenge in the energy efficiency domain. Energy efficiency of a building, very often equalized to a building’s performance should not be observed as a standalone issue. For commercial buildings, energy efficiency needs to be observed and assessed within the context of performance of resident businesses. We examine both business performance and energy performance and how they relate to one another to conclude that building occupants, who are also employees, hold the key to optimizing both metrics in one of the most cost-efficient ways. Finally, the goal of our contribution is twofold: 1) to re-scope the concept of building performance to and show the importance to consider, hand- in-hand, both energy performance and performance of resident businesses, and 2) re-state the importance of the potential that lies in the active involvement of building occupants in optimizing overall building performance.