Keywords

1 Introduction

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (2013) reported that office buildings are responsible for 20% of total commercial buildings’ energy consumption. This is not just an American issue, but office buildings represent the largest consumer of energy in all countries (Lin et al. 2022). The great challenge of the new Millennium will be to integrate sustainable development in all sectors of the global market. Sustainable development is a balance between technologies, innovation strategies, and ecosystems (Vollenbroek 2002). However, a literature review on sustainability in the construction field (Limac et al. 2021) shows that most sustainable applications focus on optimizing materials and construction systems during the design and construction phases. This represents a limit of the existing literature, especially considering that the in-use stage is the most resource consuming (Menassa 2011). In addition, the studies that look at environmental impact of in-use buildings focus on the reduction of energy consumptions (Yeheyis et al. 2013). Improving energy efficiency has a positive influence, but energy is just one component of consumption.

In defining the “human impact”, Wackernagel and Rees (1996) considered the number of people (i.e., population), the average amount of consumed resources (i.e., affluence), and the intensity of resources’ production (i.e., technology). Therefore, to examine the interactions between users, nature, and the built environment, the concept of smart sustainable buildings emerges (Belani et al. 2014). Smart sustainable buildings are a combination of technology and materials that provides users with flexible, productive, interactive, integrated, and dynamic environment (Belani et al. 2014). Buckman et al. (2014) individuated adaptability as the major feature of smart sustainable buildings. Hence, to introduce sustainable strategies in office management, an approach that translates the needs of employees into space requirements is needed to make offices adaptable overtime (Thuvander et al. 2012).

The interest in improving the sustainability performance of office buildings increased due to the disruptive effect brought by COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has drastically changed the ways of working of employees, integrating more flexibility (Tagliaro and Migliore 2021).

This change is redefining the demand and configurations of offices (Seugbeom et al. 2021). Workplace managers have to adapt buildings to the new needs of employees by integrating technology. The digital transformation of the built environment needs to include the digitalization of the building management. In the facility management, digital technologies are brought by PropTech, abbreviation for Property Technologies. PropTech companies introduce digital solutions for improving the effectiveness of the processes (Baum et al. 2020).

The general aim of this study is to acknowledge the potential of technology to improve workplace management toward a more sustainable use of office buildings. The research presents a tool for workplace sustainable evaluation, which is composed of two modules. The Workplace Space Quantification focuses on assessing the effectiveness of space planning, while the Workplace-Integrated Ecological Footprint Assessment evaluates the ecological footprint of the in-use office building.

After a literature review on the already developed digital tools in the Italian real estate market, the tool is presented and discussed. Finally, the conclusion presents the limitations and future developments of the work.

2 State of the Art

The term PropTech indicates all technologies that are impacting the real estate market (Braesemann and Baum 2020). It increases operations’ effectiveness and efficiency (Siniak and Kauko 2020). PropTech companies are usually startups and scaleups (but, also consolidated companies) that bring into the real estate innovation, digital development, and transparency (Baum et al. 2020). Authors collaborated with the Italian PropTech Network (IPN) of Politecnico di Milano, that mapped 184 companies (Bellintani et al. 2021).

PropTech taxonomy clusters companies according to the proposed solutions (Baum 2017).

The cluster relevant for the purpose of this research is Smart Real Estate, which describes digital platforms that facilitate the real estate assets’ operations (Baum et al. 2020). These platforms may provide and aggregate information of buildings or facilitate the control of building services. According to IPN, Smart Real Estate focuses on companies that manage the built environment through high-tech platforms (Bellintani et al. 2021). Among the 184 Italian PropTech companies, 19% are recorded in the Smart Real Estate, which is divided into two sub-clusters, namely Immersive Visualization and Experience, and Smart Building and Operations. The former includes solutions that support promotion of properties, and the latter includes solutions that support operators and managers during the in-use phase.

Even if PropTech companies listed in the Smart Real Estate cluster aim to improve the in-use management of buildings, they look at different aspects. Some solutions help to reduce energy consumptions of buildings. For example, solutions are available, powered by Artificial Intelligence, to control autonomously the Heating, Ventilating, and Air Conditioning systems of a building (e.g., Brainbox AI). Real-time modifications allow to optimize in-use energy consumption. Other solutions focus on the indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Platforms acquire IEQ data from sensors, process the information, and produce reports of possible improvements (e.g., Nuvap). Building managers can evaluate the healthiness of the environment dynamically and continuously. Others concentrate on the maintenance of buildings by integrating management platforms in support of property data, maintenance activity, and energy consumption (e.g., Facilio). Others look at the level of occupancy of space by elaborating data, collected through sensors (e.g., iComfort). Managers may improve the space planning of the buildings by understanding users’ preferences. Finally, other platforms control the building accessibility through check-in and check-out systems (e.g., Sofia Locks). These solutions propose a smart access control system which helps to manage through flexibility co-living, workspaces, healthcare facilities, and retail spaces.

Smart Real Estate PropTech companies try to optimize building management through several approaches. However, the adoption of sustainability in the built environment, and especially in office buildings, means going further the energy aspect or the analysis of combined data. A sustainable office building management means including social and economic implications (Jiménez-Pulido et al. 2020). This requires a holistic approach that involves into the process stakeholders (such as building users and employees) (Jiménez-Pulido et al. 2020). Moreover, none of the PropTech listed in the Smart Real Estate directly focuses on workplace management. Therefore, to overcome the sustainable management limit, the present research develops a digital tool to support workplace managers in integrating employees’ needs into the space planning and to evaluate the effects of employees’ occupation and behavior in the assessment of environmental sustainability.

3 Methodology

Authors collaborated with the Joint Research Center—PropTech between Fondazione Politecnico di Milano and for companies operating in Italy, namely Covivio, Vodafone, BNP Paribas Real Estate, and Accenture, to develop a new tool in support of a more sustainable workplace management. To meet the goal of the research, the following steps have been implemented by authors:

  1. 1.

    Literature review and benchmarking analysis to define the type and number of spaces in support of different ways of working;

  2. 2.

    Literature review on the sustainable indices able to assess the effects of users on buildings’ environmental impact;

  3. 3.

    Definition of the WSP and WIEFA structure and calculations;

  4. 4.

    Development of the online platform with digitalization of the WSP calculations;

  5. 5.

    First experiments of calculations on 3 case studies;

  6. 6.

    5 meetings with office buildings managers for testing the WIEFA;

  7. 7.

    4 meetings with the partners of the project for test all the processes.

Finally, the tool is structured into two models, namely Workplace Space Quantification (WSP), and Workplace-Integrated Ecological Footprint Assessment (WIEFA). First, the tool assesses the space quantification through the analysis of the ways of working of employees. Second, the environmental impact of the office is assessed by using a specific sustainable index, the Ecological Footprint (EF).

3.1 Workplace Space Quantification

The Workplace Space Quantification tool has been already implemented online.Footnote 1 WSP estimates the number and the m2 of spaces needed by an organization according to the ways of working of its employees, which are gathered through a 11-question survey submitted to either the individual employees or group managers. WSP identifies nineteen different spaces, as reported in Table 15.1, for which benchmarked size (m2) and capacity (number of people hosted in the space) have been defined through the literature.

Table 15.1 Workplace Space Quantification—space classification
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The questions characterize the way of working based on the time spent on different activities (such as “In a working week, how long does the group work in the office?”) and the number of people involved in different activities (such as “On average, how many people attend the meetings you hold for collaboration activities on concentration work?”) performed in the office.

The tool allows to calculate the needed spaces for a single group of employees or add together more groups to estimate the general need of the entire organization. Alternative scenarios can be created and compared showing the overall number and m2 of spaces needed by the organization, and the specific number and m2 of spaces by each group for each space, as reported in Figs. 15.1 and 15.2.

Fig. 15.1
An illustration of a workplace with a foreign text right below it. At the bottom, 4 blocks contain not assigned open individual workstations, assigned open individual workstations, touchdowns, and coffee points, each with a foreign text right below it.

Workplace Space Quantification: the scenario of the workplace. Retrieved from https://www.braveworkplace.it/login

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Fig. 15.2
2 blocks, Prova 1 and Prova 2 are of not assigned open individual workstations and assigned open individual workstations, with illustrations of a chair and desk with location and person icons, respectively.

Workplace Space Quantification: a focus on the two spaces. Retrieved from https://www.braveworkplace.it/login

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WSQ is not only helpful in the design stage of offices, but it can be used to verify the appropriateness of the workplace in monitoring employees’ ways of working during the in-use stage and inform potential spatial rearrangements to better meet the needs of employees. Based on the results of WSQ, office sustainability can be assessed through the WIEFA.

3.2 Workplace-Integrated Ecological Footprint Assessment

To evaluate environmental impact of office buildings, authors are reasoning on the Ecological Footprint (EF) index, which is a solution-oriented approach, capable to assess the (in-)efficiency of buildings’ use. EF has been developed by Wackernagel and Rees (1996) to compare the demand with the supply of resources. The demand side is the population of a system (such as the building), while the supply side is the ecosystem in which the population lives (such as the Earth). EF converts consumptions and emissions in global hectares [gha]. Global hectares represent the land of Earth that can restore or absorb humans’ consumptions or emissions. These lands are built-up land, forest land, fishing land, pastureland, cropland, and CO2 sink factor.

WIEFA tried to overcome the limitations of previous studies (Acosta and Moore 2010; Gottlieb et al. 2012; Husain and Prakas 2018; Martínez-Rocamora et al. 2016; Solìs-Guzmàn et al. 2013) that tried to implement EF in the environmental impact assessment of buildings. Indeed, WIEFA puts together all the different impact sources defined by previous studies and evaluates the users’ effect on environmental impact through a new impact source, Occupant. WIFE articulates 9 impact sources that show the consumption of the built environment, namely Built-up, Energy Consumption, Water Consumption, Material Consumption, Food and Drink, Mobility, Waste Generation, Recycle Potential, and Occupant. These are converted into global hectares [gha], through two conversion factors. World Yield Factor (WYF) translates impact sources in tons of CO2 equivalence. While Equivalence Factor (EQF) converts CO2 equivalence into gha. Both the factors are defined globally by the Global Footprint Network.Footnote 2 The 9 converted impact sources, defined addenda, are algebraically sum together, as shown in Fig. 15.3.

Fig. 15.3
A chart of 9 columns and 5 rows presents the relations between impact sources, equivalent productive lands, and E F A addenda. The final output is an integrated ecological footprint assessment.

Workplace-Integrated Ecological Footprint Assessment model—elaboration by authors

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Built-up, Energy Consumption, Water Consumption, Material Consumption, Food and Drink, Mobility, and Waste Generation are summed together as they represent consumed resources and emitted pollutants. While Recycle Potential and Occupant are subtracted, they represent recreated benefits. Recycle Potential assesses the materials reuse in the building. For example, if the building produces electricity through a photovoltaic plant, the energy consumed over the year will be reduced. Occupant highlights the benefit of simultaneous building’s occupation by multiple users.

4 Conclusions

The proposed tool intends to support workplace managers in defining which is the effect of employees in the use of space and resources of an office. The integration of WSQ and WIEFA allows to develop a specific tool for office buildings, that evaluates environmental impacts of the in-use stage. Previous solutions focus only on energy consumption or look at the buildings’ performance, without estimating the impact of users’ occupation and behavior. However, the present tool can help workplace managers to adapt office buildings to changes in users’ needs.

The tool still presents some limitations and room for improvement. First, the Workplace-Integrated Ecological Footprint model still needs to be refined and digitalized. Second, the science of sustainability does not look only at users and environment, but it aims to achieve an economic sustainability, which would be important to add to the current model. An additional section of the model will need to be implemented to look at the operational costs associated with the use of offices. This third addition will add the economic sustainability to the tool and will help workplace managers to understand not only the environmental effects of users, space utilizations, and resources’ consumption, but also economic effects.

The model would need to be tested through a case study to assess its reliability and effectiveness. In order to offer seamless functionality and assure precision of the data, ideally the tool should automatically retrieve the information from sensors and periodically prompted questionnaires to building users, which would encompass integration with a number of PropTech solutions.