Abstract
Growth in energy use for indoor cooling tripled between 1990 and 2016 to outpace any other end use in buildings. Part of this energy demand is wasted on excessive cooling of offices, a practice known as overcooling. Overcooling has been attributed to poorly designed or managed air-conditioning systems with thermostats that are often set below recommended comfort temperatures. Prior research has reported lower thermal comfort for women in office buildings, but there is insufficient evidence to explain the reasons for this disparity. We use two large and independent datasets from US buildings to show that office temperatures are less comfortable for women largely due to overcooling. Survey responses show that uncomfortable temperatures are more likely to be cold than hot regardless of season. Crowdsourced data suggests that overcooling is a common problem in warm weather in offices across the US. The associated impacts of this pervasive overcooling on well-being and performance are borne predominantly by women. The problem is likely to increase in the future due to growing demand for cooling in increasingly extreme climates. There is a need to rethink the approach to air-conditioning office buildings in light of this gender inequity caused by overcooling.
Highlights
Growth in energy use for indoor cooling tripled between 1990 and 2016 to outpace any other end use in buildings
One way to reduce building energy consumption is to minimize heating, ventilation, and airconditioning (HVAC) usage, which represents the largest source of energy use in b uildings[2]
We argue that current air-conditioning strategies tend to overcool office buildings, leading to the lower thermal satisfaction for women reported in the literature
Summary
Growth in energy use for indoor cooling tripled between 1990 and 2016 to outpace any other end use in buildings. Most research evidence on gender differences in thermal comfort would suggest that overcooling is likely to affect women more than men. Extant evidence demonstrates that temperatures in many US office buildings do not reflect the thermal preferences and requirements of women.
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