DEVELOPING A FOCUS FOR GREEN BUILDING OCCUPANT TRAINING MATERIALS

With the shift from conventional to green buildings a need emerges to train staff on how to work within them.Build-ing occupants control many of the green building technologies,which makes it necessary to educate occupants on the differences between using a green building versus a conventional building in order to secure the green building’s suc-cess.The breadth of information that is necessary for an occupant to know in order to change their behaviors to be in accord with the high performing building they occupy makes it necessary to use a systematic method to reduce the in-formation provided in trainings.This study employs a decision matrix approach as an objective means to narrow the focus of the training.A case study is used to implement the methods developed in this study.A focus group evaluated the effectiveness of the decision matrix.Results from the focus group showed that staff was active in waste reduction behaviors,but not in energy efficient actions.This supported the outcome of the decision matrix infinding relevant,necessary information for the training.

DETERMINING ADEQUATE INFORMATION FOR GREEN BUILDING OCCUPANT TRAINING MATERIALS

As knowledge of the built environment’s impact on resource and energy use increases,industry leaders are moving toward a healthier,more sustainable solution by building green.Though green buildings have the ability to improve occupant health and productivity,it is not clear what impact the behaviors of building occupants have on the building.New systems and technologies in green buildings require building occupants to think and operate differently in their new green environment,otherwise risking not fully gaining the benefits of the new facility.The new behaviors necessary to the success of the green building are not necessarily obvious or trivial.They cannot simply be learned“on-the-job;”rather the transformation will require formal education.It likely requires changing attitudes and beliefs in addition to building a robust understanding of new procedures.This study sought to determine the amount of information neces-sary to change occupants’willingness to use new energy-efficient behaviors not followed in the conventional building.An empirical test comparing four versions of the same training,each with varying amounts and types of information was presented to three different populations:nursing staff of a green building,clinical staff of a green building,and nursing staff of a conventional building.Results show that knowledge of green building standards and the impact of energy saving behaviors are the information necessary to increase willingness to change behaviors.Also,staff members of the new,green building are more willing to change behaviors than staff of the conventional building.

The socio-spatial dimension of behavior analysis:Frontiers and progress in Chinese behavioral geography

The interaction between urban space and individual behavior has led to essential social, economic and environmental consequences. Behavioral geography provides a new effective theoretical and methodological framework to investigate behavior patterns in cities. In recent years, behavior approach has become an influential analytical paradigm in Chinese urban geography. This paper provides an overview of behavioral geography research in China, by introducing the theoretical and empirical progress in behavior analysis. It is argued that behavioral approach offers a new perspective to understanding China＇s urban sociospatial reconstruction and addressing social and environmental issues at micro scale. Although theoretical development still lags behind developed countries, Chinese scholars have made much progress in empirical investigations of classical socio-spatial behavior theories. This paper also provides an overview of new trends in Chinese behavioral geography that has started to apply the behavioral approach to urban social, economic and environmental issues. This paper suggests that social dimensions of behavior should be addressed more comprehensively and rigorously by using interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological frameworks, to better understand the complexity of Chinese cities and research the critical social and environmental issues in cities.