Guy Newsham (Principal Research Officer, National Research Council Canada)
We conducted a post-occupancy evaluation of 12 green and 12 conventional office buildings.Occupants completed a detailed questionnaire, and we conducted detailed on-site physical measurements. Green buildings exhbited superior overall performance; better outcomes included: environmental satisfaction, workplace image, night-time sleep quality, physical symptoms, and fewer airborne particulates. We also re-analysed energy use data from 100 LEED-certified commercial and institutional buildings. LEED buildings used 18-39% less energy than their conventional counterparts, but measured energy performance had little correlation with the number of energy credits achieved at design time.
Guy completed his PhD at the Martin Centre in 1990. He then joined Canada's National Research Council,where he has led research projects on office space design, green building performance, lighting quality and control, sensor networks in buildings, demand-responsive buildings, office equipment energy use, and thermal comfort. He has more than 100 scientific publications, and is a co-author of the new IESNNANSI Recommended Practice for Office Lighting (RP1). He is also a member of the Task Group on Lighting and Electrical Power for the Canada's National Energy Code for Buildings.