As the Century of Progress comes to an end, we must acknowledge the burden it has placed on the environment and agree that, for the planet to survive, people and technology must respect and nurture the ecology. In 1999, the IIDA, in its strategic plan, identified sustainable design issues among the top priorities for membership, education, and training. The first step of the project was to create a gap-analysis to describe the current climate of attitudes of professional designers and facility managers, as agents to the client, to gain insight into the disconnect between universal acceptance and execution of sustainable design practices. Corrigan Research, Inc. conducted the study to assess the current attitudes of design decision-makers surrounding the issue of sustainability. The following text was excerpted from the recently-published white paper that examines the findings of the project.
Initiatives seem to be driven, in part, by the tremendous current labor shortages in the workplace.
The need for qualified employees is so strong that employee recruitment and retention has been named one of the top issues facing corporate America. The race to attract the best and brightest to corporate life has changed attitudes toward workplace environments. For this group, work is not just about paying the rent, it's about self-fulfillment. This 'gold-collared' work force is looking for improved quality of life within the workplace. While both communities of facility managers and designers acknowledge the importance of sustainable design, the value they place on these solutions is not aligned with the emerging values of the business community.