Canadian practitioners' perception of research work investigating the cost premiums, long-term costs and health and productivity benefits of green buildings

Despite evidence suggesting conflicting views between practitioners and researchers when it comes to estimating the costs and financial benefits of green buildings, there exists no research work that has attempted to investigate practitioners' perception, and in particular Canadian practitioners', of the work conducted by researchers. To fill this gap in the literature, a web-based anonymous survey was administered to 1200 LEED accredited professionals in Canada to assess, among other things, practitioners' awareness, and confidence in research work assessing the cost premiums, long-term cost benefits, and health and productivity benefits of green buildings. The statistical analysis of the data using t-tests and mixed-model ANOVA tests showed that Canadian practitioners were still uncertain about results of the literature. Despite a slow change in attitudes the longer they worked in the field, practitioners continued to identify high cost premiums as the primary barrier to investing in green practices, and energy cost savings as the most important type of savings incurred in green buildings. The majority were uncertain about the size and impact of productivity and health benefits, and about how best to measure them. First-time adopters of LEED usually found the cost and complexity of the system prohibitive. Many believed that the decision to go green rested ultimately with the owner. That is why future research work needs to focus on improving knowledge transfer between practitioners and researchers and on improving the rigour and accuracy of the literature by using more empirical data, and getting practitioners to endorse research work in the field.