Association between Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), Occupants Productivity and Perceived Productivity in Malaysian Green Office Buildings

Abstract

The indoor environmental quality (IEQ) can be describe in general as the measurement of the internal environment and parameters affecting the comfort of building occupants. This research study aims to examine the relationship between Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ), occupant’s satisfaction and productivity in selected green rated office buildings. The survey was conducted at four (4) rated Green Building Index (GBI) office buildings located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya, Malaysia. These selected office buildings was awarded with Platinum and Gold Provisional Certification respectively by the GBI Association Malaysia. There are twenty-five (25) items in Section A of the questionnaire while there are twelve (12) items on the respondent’s demographic profile and work place criteria that were allocated in section B of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was administrated to 350 occupants working in the rated green office buildings with responsive rate of 86%. The respondents were asked to select their preferences based on a seven-point Likert scale of agreement and satisfaction for Section A and multiple answer question for Section B. Descriptive analysis of this main study was conducted using the SPSS version 22. Meanwhile, the measurement and structural model analysis of this study was performed using the PLS-SEM: SMART PLS Version 3.2. There are four aspects of assessment in this measurement model that include indicator reliability, internal consistency reliability, convergent validity, discriminant validity, and multicollinearity evaluation. As for the structural model of this study, an analysis was conducted to verify the research hypothesis of this study. Hence, result of this main study indicated that there is a mix relationship between the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) main variables with occupant’s satisfaction and productivity in green rated office building. These results highlighted the importance of the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) dimensions of the thermal comfort perceiving occupant’s satisfaction in office building. Thus, also verified that there is a significant association between occupant’s satisfaction and perceived productivity in green rated Non-Residential New Construction (NRNC) building.