Better Thinking

New research says yes. Occupants of green-certified, high-performing buildings saw 26 percent higher cognitive function scores, slept better and reported fewer health symptoms compared to those in similarly high-performing buildings that were not green-certified. Those are the findings of a new study from researchers at the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Center for Health and the Global Environment and SUNY Upstate Medical University.

• The greatest cognitive function differences were seen in the areas of crisis response (73 percent higher in green-certified, high-performing buildings); applied activity level – the ability to gear decision-making toward overall goals (44 percent); focused activity level – the capacity to pay attention to situations at hand (38 percent); and strategy (31 percent).
• Sleep quality scores were 6.4 percent higher for participants in green-certified buildings, suggesting building impact on sleep quality.
• Finally, participants reported better environmental perceptions and 30 percent fewer sick building symptoms in high-performing, green-certified buildings vs. high-performing, non-certified buildings.

Based on their latest findings, the research team believes a holistic approach is needed. They call it Buildingomics — a new approach that examines the totality of factors in the building-related environment that influence the human health, well-being and productivity of people who work in buildings.

Through Buildingomics’ multi-disciplinary approach, researchers aim to better understand the building-related factors that influence health in buildings and unlock the ability to optimize buildings for cognitive function and health.