There’s been a priority focus on creating healthy workspaces — monitored social distancing, space utilization, PPE detection, people counting, etc.
A recent survey among 400 organizations in the U.S. and Canada shows that building owners are focused on making buildings healthier and work environments safer. Not surprisingly, given the events of the last year, there’s an elevated need and interest in healthy buildings.
Initiatives
Nine out of ten firms have dedicated resources to healthy buildings initiatives.
These include:
• Healthy workspaces
• Clean air programs
• Safe access programs
• Healthy facility systems
• Disaster response
Government and manufacturing
Most firms have already implemented some type of healthy buildings initiative. The industries with the highest response are government (71 percent of firms) and manufacturing (70 percent). Across industries, firms seek a robust solution to healthy buildings. There’s been a priority focus on creating healthy workspaces — monitored social distancing, space utilization, PPE detection, people counting, etc. To some extent, most firms have also made efforts to improve clean air, access, facilities, and disaster response.
Back to work
While some firms cite budget limitations or have already reached their goals, 57 percent plan to invest more resources in healthy buildings initiatives. This is especially important in industries and companies where workers have been temporarily working from home but a long-term approach is needed to get people safely back to their physical place of work.
Universal spending pattern
While some industries spend slightly more on clean air initiatives (commercial real estate) and others on disaster response and healthy workspace (healthcare), overall, the need and desire for healthy buildings and safe workspaces transcends vertical markets. While the expected arrival of a widespread vaccine will influence spending to some extent, most firms agree that healthy buildings initiatives are critical while the process of vaccinating the entire workforce takes place
