Triggering occupant behaviour for energy sustainability: Exploring subjective and comfort-related drivers in Brazilian offices

Indoor environmental quality, socio-psychological aspects, as well as contextual and personal factors, can be considered as multi-domain drivers for occupant behaviour (OB). Therefore, this study relies on a survey that bridges the gap between building physics and social psychology to implement an interdisciplinary framework into OB research. A case study was conducted in Florianópolis, southern Brazil. Results show that the impact of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) parameters on respondents’ satisfaction is correlated with their influence on perceived productivity. Besides this stand-alone effect, IEQ-beliefs related to indoor temperature and air quality are correlated. The main sources of environmental discomfort and reasons for OB were analysed and provided a basis for further evaluations. Then, the twofold relation between multi-domain discomfort and OB were represented in a flowchart. Our conclusions support that OB must be treated as multi-physics and multi-domain-comfort issues, as adaptive behaviours to restore occupants’ comfort may result in additional sources of discomfort. Finally, all the surveyed aspects – IEQ-beliefs, subjective, contextual, and personal factors – were used to perform decision-tree-based analyses to find the main predictors for behaviours. The first takeaway is that control over building systems is the principal driver for adjustments. Additionally, subjective aspects like IEQ-beliefs, frequency of negotiation to control building systems, attitudes, ease and intention towards sharing their control were also important predictors. It evidences that increased data-driven knowledge about those relations is essential in this field, and future monitoring and modelling approaches may be enhanced by incorporating them instead of focusing siloed on environmental parameters.