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Ideally, lights should be controlled to meet the needs of building occupants as closely and as economically as possible. Not so long ago, you could put a switch — or a bank of switches — by the door and there was little else to think about. Local switches are still quite effective in small cellular offices, but in larger spaces all the lights tend to get switched on by the first to arrive, often because it is not clear which switch does what. The lights then stay on — even when daylight is adequate or when the room is empty, and often until late at night — because nobody bothers or dares to switch off for fear of inconveniencing others.

Describes how the communicational and economies‐of‐scale advantages of open‐plan offices are lost when working groups have to endure uncomfortable and uncontrollable environments resulting from lack of consideration of their needs at the planning stage and from management and maintenance deficiencies thereafter. Concludes that facilities managers who lack the resources to run the open‐plan system properly should kill it and go for shallow‐depth cellular offices with simpler services; cure it only if there is full understanding of, and resources to provide for, all the elements of its management.

Looks at complexity in office buildings and its consequences, desirable and undesirable. Draws on evidence from studies of comfort, control, productivity, health, energy efficiency and human satisfaction carried out in offices in the United Kingdom since 1985. From this work, it is known that many office buildings do not function as well as their designers originally intended. They are frequently uncomfortable for their occupants, especially in summer, and too often make people chronically ill. This results in lower human productivity – a substantial hidden cost to many organizations. Their energy consumption is often excessive and, consequently, so are their emissions of carbon dioxide, which is one of the causes of global warming.

Based on a presentation to the Cambridge University Programme for Industry′s short course on environmental management in buildings, outlines things which can go wrong and how to correct them. Looks also at the importance of energy and its consumption and shows how energy‐efficient buildings can be. Stresses that good design, execution, management and the right technology are key ingredients in achieving energy‐efficient office buildings.

Investigates in depth Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) and the means to deal with the problem. Shows that ignoring job stress can actually increase the incidence of SBS. Modern management control systems should aid in reducing discomfort and make for a healthier and more economical environment. Concludes that optimizing environmental quality and performance should be targets for senior operational managers.

Representatives of 20 major companies from as far as Bahrain and South Africa attended the FM course held recently at Reading University. Run in association with Facilities, the five‐day event was the first of its kind in the UK and, according to organiser, Professor Bill Biggs, was as much about bringing like‐minded people together for an exchange of views, as it was about offering a rigorous academic framework: ‘The main thing is to bring people together for a long enough period so they can really start to talk.’

Considers the whole‐life costs of various forms of heating, cooling and air‐conditioning in the office interior, from the economic view points of both organizations and developers. Considers whether air‐conditioning is necessary and/or affordable in the post‐recession property world. Evaluates costs and efficiency, for developers, investors and tenants in developing, buying or leasing a commercial building. Points to the importance of wise decisions, properly informed by technology and economics.

The article aims to provide an insight into concepts, frameworks and processes related to sustainable facility management (FM) within event venues. A further objective is to determine whether, to the degree that this is possible, in which degree there is consensus in relation to the above aspects amongst the literature findings and what is followed in practice.

A review of current literature was conducted in order to determine current trends in the sustainable FM sector that concern venues from a design, facility manager, organisation and stakeholder perspective. It is equally addressed to academics, students, practitioners, suppliers and investors.

It was found that although in literature, there is an abundance of good practices to follow, in many cases this is not possible due to costs or lack of focus of the organisation.

Even if guidelines are followed, there should be a greater standardisation of prerequisites and publication of detailed results so best practice within the industry can be looked up to. Managers, owners, etc. should have more of these and publish them as well.

The article contributes to an understanding of the elements of sustainable FM as well as their interconnectivity and importance. It also offers examples in order to investigate the applicability of current literature.

Although the handover stage is the key transition stage between the construction and operation, there is no critical overview of issues and research at the handover stage, hindering the achievement of sustainable development of buildings. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to review the building handover-related issues and research in construction and facility management (FM) journals. The specific objectives of this study include: analyze the research trends and overview the handover-related publications; identify the major research topics on the handover of buildings; identify research gaps and propose future research directions.

This study opted for a four-step systematic review of papers from the well-known academic journals in the construction and FM respects.

The results first revealed the increasing research interest in the handover of buildings from the researchers. Moreover, the post-construction defects, poor information fidelity, poor interoperability between building information modeling (BIM) and FM technologies, and insufficient consideration of end users were identified as the most concerned challenges for a building handover. Furthermore, identifying and formalizing information requirements for handover, improving the handover process, and improving the interoperability between BIM and FM were solutions mostly emphasized by researchers.

As the first systematic review of building handover-related issues and research, this study is the building block for future research on this topic. The findings provide guidance for researchers in the construction and FM research community, and help them form useful collaboration for future research opportunities and find future research directions.

The identified significant challenges and potential solutions for a building handover could assist practitioners in making rational decisions on developing or adopting relevant technologies, and reshaping their management patterns and working processes. Moreover, the findings could be severed as evidence for policymakers to initiate policies, such as documents e-submission and timely updating BIMs, to achieve the vision of model-based project delivery.

This study contributed to the body of knowledge of sustainable development by providing a new insight to tackle the hindrance to the smooth transition from the construction to the operation.

The purpose of this paper is to explain the rationale for integrating sustainability issues into property valuation theory and practice and to provide initial suggestions for valuers on how to account for sustainability issues within valuation reports.

The authors emphasise the key role of valuation professionals and of the valuation process itself in achieving a broader market penetration of sustainable construction. It is explained that, on the one hand, property valuation represents the major mechanism to align economic return with environmental and social performance of property assets, and thus to express and communicate the advantages and benefits of sustainable buildings. On the other hand, it is explained that gradual changes in market participants' perceptions in favour of sustainable buildings must be reflected within the property valuation and associated risk assessment process (otherwise valuers would produce misleading price estimates). The authors identify both the financial benefits and risk reduction potential of sustainable design as well as valuation input parameters that would allow these benefits to be reflected in property price estimates.

The authors show that the main reasons for immediately and rigorously integrating sustainability issues into property valuation are as follows: more sustainable patterns of behaviour are urgently necessary to sustain the viability of the Earth's ecosystems; a huge untapped market potential exists for sustainable property investment products and consulting services; sustainable buildings clearly outperform their conventional competitors in all relevant areas (i.e. environmentally, socially and financially); neglecting the benefits of sustainable design leads to distorted price estimates; and reflecting sustainability issues in property price estimates is already possible and the validity of this decision depends solely on the valuer's capability and sophistication to explain and justify his/her assumptions within the valuation report. However, it is also shown that efforts need to be undertaken to improve the description of property assets in transaction databases in order to provide the informational databases necessary to empirically underpin a valuer's decision to assign a “valuation bonus” to a sustainable building or a “valuation reduction” to an unsustainable/conventional one.

The paper postulates that valuation reports should be extended to include the following additional elements: a clear description of the availability of certain sustainability‐related property characteristics and attributes; a statement of the valuer's opinion about the benefits of these characteristics and attributes; and a statement of the valuer's opinion about the impact of these benefits and/or risks on property value.