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The purpose of this paper is to deepen understanding of what is working and what is not working within green workplace environments. The paper examines management and employee perceptions of their experiences of working in green workplace environments and assesses the effectiveness of such places.

Being the second stage of a longitudinal study, this paper relies on a data set derived from its survey of 31 management and 351 employee respondents occupying Green Building Council Australia Green Star‐rated offices for more than 12 months.

The green workplace is a great place to be, at least most of the time, but there is a discrepancy between the views of management who see greater benefits of the green workplace than their employees.

By focussing on green buildings, there is no control to establish a benchmark. Hence, the next stage of the research is a comparable study of a non‐green data sample. Also to be tested is – whilst managers and employees overall report satisfaction with their green workplace, what is the norm?

The findings are useful for green building industry practitioners and for building owners and managers to maximise the benefits of owning and occupying green buildings by highlighting areas that may require particular attention in order to get it right. The results are particularly useful to support targeted efforts to meet the environmental aspects of the workspace needs of employees. This study aims to assist industry practitioners, owner and managers to learn from the experience of current occupiers and thereby assist the design and space management of office space in the future where such considerations will become increasingly important given the international concerns for improved resource management.

With international applicability, a large sample of office space users provides empirical evidence of what works/does not work within the green workplace, i.e. its strengths and weaknesses and provides a good reference point for similar studies in the future, leading to the establishment of clearer, more useful benchmarks of green building occupier satisfaction.

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the perceptions by occupiers of green workplace environments. It examines how occupiers (both management and employees) perceive and evaluate the role of green workplace environments, and subsequently assesses the effectiveness of a green workplace environment.

The paper relies on a data set derived from a survey of 128 respondents who have occupied Green Building Council Australia's Green Star‐rated offices and buildings for more than 12 months.

The findings suggest that green workplace offers greater psychological benefits (taking pride of the workplace environment) to occupiers than physical improvements (health and productivity gains). Further, management perceived greater benefits of green workplace compared to employees.

This paper summarises the findings of the first phase of a longitudinal study. It is limited at this stage by a relatively small data sample, given that there are only a limited number of Green Star‐rated buildings that have been in operation for more than 12 months at this stage of data collection. However, the survey has a 36 per cent response rate and thus provides reasonable scope for generalisation of the findings.

The results are useful to building owners and employers who need to be more aware of probable outcomes in terms of employee workplace satisfaction, and areas that may require particular attention in transitioning to green workplaces. The results are also useful to managers by highlighting areas of perceived deficiency in green workplaces and ensuring a more targeted effort in meeting the needs and expectations of employees.

The paper provides empirical findings of the strengths and weaknesses of a relatively new concept, i.e. the green workplace. The findings from the Australian experience serves as a good benchmark for future similar studies.

The aims of this paper is to investigate the overall satisfaction of occupants of green and conventional residential buildings and their perception of indoor environment quality (IEQ) and to study factors that may cause occupants’ dissatisfaction.

Data were collected through a survey sent to occupants of comparable green and conventional multi-family buildings. The difference in responses between occupants of green and conventional buildings was analysed using Mann–Whitney (rank sum) test. The ordered logistic models were applied to the data to test whether the overall satisfaction changes depending on the level of acceptance of indoor environment quality and whether the building environmental profile and the apartment tenure affect occupant satisfaction.

The results show that both categories of occupants are very satisfied with their apartments and that there is no statistically significant difference between the stated overall satisfaction of occupants living in green and conventional buildings, although a difference was found in the acceptance level for thermal and sound quality. The research highlights the importance of occupant feedback, user-friendly technical installations and the ability to control indoor environment. This knowledge is important for designers, engineers and developers alike in enabling them to improve dwelling quality and minimize post-occupancy problems.

It was not possible to include physical measurements of IEQ parameters; the analysis is based only on occupants’ responses, which may carry a certain subjectivity.

The paper contributes to the understanding of IEQ from occupant perspective and to knowledge on green building performance.