Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 1057–1062

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Energy and Buildings

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Quantitative measurement of productivity loss due to thermal discomfort

Li Lan a,b,∗ , Pawel Wargocki b , Zhiwei Lian a
a
Institute of Refrigeration & Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
b
International Centre for Indoor Environment and Energy, Technical University of Denmark, Building 402, DK-2800 Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: The effects on human performance of elevated temperature causing thermal discomfort were investi-
Thermal discomfort gated. Recruited subjects performed neurobehavioural tests examining different component skills, and
Productivity addition and typing tasks that were used to replicate office work. The results show that thermal discom-
Measurement
fort caused by elevated air temperature had a negative effect on performance. A quantitative relationship
Thermal sensation votes
was established between thermal sensation votes and task performance. It can be used for economic cal-
culations pertaining to building design and operation when occupant productivity is considered. The
relationship indicates that optimum performance can be achieved slightly below neutral, while thermal
discomfort (feeling too warm or too cold) leads to reduced performance. Consequently, it makes sense
to set the PMV limits in workplaces in the range between −0.5 and 0 instead of between −0.5 and 0.5 as
stipulated in the present standards.
© 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction in productivity of 0.5–5%, worth US$12 billion to US$125 billion

One of the fundamental human requirements is a working
environment that allows people to perform their work optimally
under comfortable conditions. It has previously been established
that indoor environmental quality (IEQ) influences human perfor-
mance; a performance increase of as much as 10% or more can
be expected following improvements of the indoor environment
[1–3].
The occupant-indoor environment interaction has strong eco-
nomic implications. Studies have identified that the salaries of
office workers are many times higher than the cost of operat-
ing a building in developed countries [4,5]. Therefore, even small
improvements in productivity following improvements of IEQ can
result in a substantial economic benefit. Cost-benefit calculations
indicated that the net productivity gain reduced by improving
indoor air quality could exceed the investment costs by a factor of
60 with a turnover period of no more than 2.1 years [6]. The invest-
ments in improved indoor thermal conditions can also be justified
economically because published experimental results have shown
that there is a direct effect of thermal environment on mental work
(e.g., [3,7–9]). Based on very conservative assumptions, Fisk and
Rosenfeld [10] have estimated that improving the thermal envi-
ronment in US office buildings would result in a direct increase
∗ Corresponding author at: Institute of Refrigeration & Cryogenics, Shanghai Jiao
Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China. Tel.: +86 21 34206570;
fax: +86 21 34206814.
E-mail address: lanli tty@hotmail.com (L. Lan).
annually.
Potential productivity benefits are not yet generally consid-
ered in conventional economic calculations pertaining to building
design and operation [11]. This is occurring even though build-
ing services engineers are gradually interested in improving indoor
environments and quantifying the effects so that these productivity
effects could be incorporated into cost-benefit calculations relat-
ing to building design and operation. For this to happen, reliable
relationships between IEQ and productivity should be created.
Air temperature is the commonly used indicator of thermal
environment in IEQ and productivity research. Berglund et al. [12]
predicted performance decrement over a range of indoor tempera-
tures based on the performance measurement of wireless operators
and Gagge’s two-layer model [13]. Another relationship between
air temperature and performance was established by Seppänen et
al. [14] who, unlike Berglund et al., used the results from many pub-
lished studies over a wider range of temperatures using different
performance metrics.
Thermal comfort is derived from the actual requirements of peo-
ple and is influenced by their metabolic heat production, physical
activity, clothing and the four environmental parameters: air tem-
perature, mean radiant temperature, air velocity and air humidity.
Different combinations of these thermal criteria would result in
the same thermal sensation. Wyon et al. [15] showed that sub-
jects performing sedentary work under two conditions (0.6 clo
at around 23.2 ◦ C and 1.15 clo at around 18.7 ◦ C) and achieving
subjectively assessed thermal neutrality by slightly adjusting the
air temperature could achieve similar performance results under
these two different temperature conditions. Taking these results

0378-7788/$ – see front matter © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2010.09.001
1058 L. Lan et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 1057–1062
into account, it seems that using only air temperature to define
thermal conditions for optimal performance may not be sufficient,
when describing the effects of thermal environment on perfor-
mance. This is in spite the air temperature is the commonly used
indicator of thermal environment in IEQ and productivity research.
In addition to temperature, it would be necessary to use other
parameters describing the thermal environment, such as thermal
sensation vote or the predicted mean vote (PMV). Such an approach
was used by Loveday et al. [16] who derived a deterministic model
relating productivity to three variables: air temperature, relative
humidity and relative air velocity, by Roelofsen [17] who related
the loss of performance with PMV and by Jensen et al. [18] who
derived the relationship between thermal sensation votes and per-
formance. In addition to these relationships, Kosonen and Tan [19]
illustrated how the productivity loss can be minimized through
improved thermal comfort design criteria using the PMV index;
however, only the effects of feeling too warm on productivity were
reported and no relationship between PMV and productivity was
created.
An attempt to establish a quantitative relationship between
thermal environment (thermal sensation votes) and performance
was also made in the present study using the data from the experi-
ments examining the effect of thermal discomfort on performance
of a wide range of performance tasks.
2. Experiments
2.1. Experimental set-up
The experiment was carried out in a normal office adapted for
the experiments with a total floor area of 18 m2 and a volume of
57.6 m3 . Two thermal conditions were created by setting the tem-
perature in the office to 22 ◦ C and 30 ◦ C. A noise level of 50 dB(A)
(with no occupants in the office) and a ventilation rate of 10 L/s
per person were kept constant, independent of the temperature in
the office. The room was ventilated by 100% outdoor air using the
mixing principle.
Twelve volunteers (6 females and 6 males, aged on average
23 ± 2 years) were recruited based on the following criteria: famil-
iarity with computers, impartiality to the room in which the study
was carried out, and absence of colour blind, asthma, allergy, hay-
fever and chronic diseases. They were paid a salary at a fixed rate per
hour and did not receive any bonuses. During the week preceding
the experiment, subjects received a 1 h session at 22 ◦ C to prac-
tise neurobehavioural tests and other tasks that were subsequently
used in the experiment, and they received instructions on how
to fill out the subjective questionnaires. During this session they
adjusted their clothing so as to feel thermally neutral. The result-
ing clothing level was registered to be about 0.9 clo. This clothing
level was expected to create two distant thermal sensations dur-
ing actual exposures: neutral at 22 ◦ C and warm at 30 ◦ C. During
actual exposures the subjects wore the same clothing ensemble
that caused thermal neutral sensation during the practice session.
All subjects (except for one who missed one session) completed all
experimental sessions.
The subjects were divided into 2 groups of 6 (3 males and 3
females) in each group; they sat at six workstations, each con-
sisting of a table, a chair, a desk lamp and a personal laptop
computer. Each group was exposed to each thermal condition twice
in a repeated-measures design with repetition; the order of expo-
sures was balanced, i.e., one group was exposed in the following
order: 22–30–30–22 and the other group in the following order:
30–22–22–30. The experiment was carried out during the last two
weeks of March 2009, each week on four days from Monday to
Thursday, and each day for 4.5 h in the afternoon, from 13:00 to
17:30. Each group was exposed on the same weekday (Group 1 on
Mondays and Wednesdays, Group 2 on Tuesdays and Thursdays)
of the two successive experimental weeks to avoid any influence
of weekday on the within-subject difference between conditions.
Although only 12 subjects participated, the repeated measures
design with repetition ensured that the statistical power of the
study was similar to analogous previous studies on the effects of
IEQ on performance which used 30 subjects and the repeated mea-
sures design without repetition (e.g. [9]); the statistical power for
both designs is 0.96 with the sphericity assumption and assuming
equal medium effect size (ES = 0.25).
Each experimental session lasted for 4.5 h with a 10-min break
after approximately 2 h. During exposure in the room, subjects per-
formed text typing and addition [2,20] simulating office work, as
well as neurobehavioural tests (redirection, grammatical reasoning,
digit span memory, visual learning memory, number calculation (addi-
tion, subtraction, and multiplication), Stroop and choice reaction
time, see [21–23] for further details) examining different compo-
nent skills. The tasks were presented on a PC and were self-paced;
the reaction/processing time was recorded by the computer clock.
All tasks were presented to subjects without feedback, i.e. they did
not receive any information on their performance and performed
each task until it was completed. In addition, text typing, addition,
Stroop and number calculation were also presented to subjects with
feedback about their performance, i.e. when they committed an
error they could not continue performing the task until the error
was corrected. The subjects performed the text typing task with
feedback for 10 min and without feedback also for 10 min. For the
addition task with and without feedback, they attempted to add as
many columns as possible each during a 10-min period. It took the
subjects about 30 min to complete each set of neurobehavioural
tests presented without feedback and then approximately 10 min
to complete the Stroop and number calculation test presented with
feedback. The tasks were always performed in the same order inde-
pendently of the condition according to the schedule shown in
Fig. 1. Four sets of tasks having similar difficulty were prepared
and randomly assigned to subjects in the balanced design for order
of presentation. Speed (response time including the time spent for
error correction) was used as a measure of performance of tasks
completed with feedback. In this case the performance index (PI)
was calculated as the reciprocal of processing/reaction time. Speed
(response time) and accuracy (% correct) were used as measures
of performance of tasks completed without feedback. In this case,
the performance index (PI) was computed by dividing the mean
processing/reaction time by the accuracy of responses. In the case
of Digit span, the performance was measured by accuracy, i.e. the
maximum number of digits the subject could correctly learn and
recall; in the case of visual learning, performance was also mea-
sured by accuracy by registering memory capacity, i.e. percentage
of correctly recalled nonsense designs [21].
During experiments, the subjects also evaluated the perceived
air quality, thermal comfort, Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) symp-
toms, emotion, fatigue, performance and workload several times.
Physiological parameters were also measured, including finger
temperature, heart rate, End Tidal CO2 concentration (ETCO2 ),
biomarkers in saliva, and tear film quality; Tsai–Partington test
was used to measure the level of arousal. Some of these measure-
ments were used to discuss potential mechanisms underlying the
observed effects on performance as discussed elsewhere [23].
Air temperature, operative temperature, relative humidity, car-
bon dioxide concentration (CO2 ), ventilation rate, light intensity
and noise were measured.
The SPSS 13.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) program was used to
make the statistical analysis. The measured data were subject to
analysis of variance in a repeated measures design; Huynh–Feldt
statistics were used to adjust the violation of sphericity. The sig-
 L. Lan et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 1057–1062
Fig. 1. Experimental procedure.
nificance level was set to be 0.05 (P < 0.05). The repeated-measures
ANOVA was used as it has been shown to be robust even for data
that are not completely normally distributed. Effect sizes (ES) were
calculated considering that it is ES instead of P-value that measures
the difference between the true value and the value specified by
the null hypothesis and hence indicates whether the difference is
practically important; ES of 0.1, 0.25 and 0.4 for the ANOVA indicate
small, moderate and large changes [24].
2.2. Results
The measured physical parameters describing the main param-
eters of indoor climate in the office under two different exposure
conditions are shown in Table 1; operative temperatures did not
deviate from the intended levels.
Perception of the thermal environment is shown in Fig. 2. It can
be seen that the subjects were thermally neutral (mean thermal
sensation votes = 0.01) at 22 ◦ C and thermally warm (mean thermal
sensation votes = 2.14) at 30 ◦ C, which indicates that the two ther-
mal conditions were as intended. At 22 ◦ C, thermal sensation votes
decreased somewhat during the beginning of exposure. A similar
result was also observed in studies of Tham and Willem [25]. The
possible reason could be due to the slightly higher metabolic rate
of subjects upon entering the office, which decreased during the
course of exposure; this is compatible with studies of Goto et al.
[26]. Fig. 3 shows that the self-estimated performance was signifi-
cantly lower at 30 ◦ C compared with 22 ◦ C (P < 0.05).
Fig. 2. Thermal sensation as a function of time during exposure in the office.
1059
Except for performance of the text typing task, the performance
of other tasks decreased at 30 ◦ C compared with 22 ◦ C (Table 2).
For some tasks the decrease was not significant but the effect sizes
can be considered to have practical importance. The performance
of tasks presented with feedback was affected to a higher degree
than of the tasks presented without feedback. In the case of text typ-
ing without feedback, the subjects input more characters at 30 ◦ C
but at the same time they also made more errors; the effect size
was small in this case and the effect was insignificant, suggesting
that the observed effect occurred by chance and had no practical
importance. When text typing with feedback was presented, sub-
jects performed less well at 30 ◦ C compared with 22 ◦ C. The effect
was not statistically significant either; however, the effect size was
this time moderate.
3. Development of quantitative relationship between
productivity and thermal environment
The performance of neurobehavioural tests and simulated office
work in this study as well as data of two other relevant studies
(Table 3) carried out by the main Author [21,22] were used to derive
the quantitative relationship between thermal sensation and per-
formance (Fig. 4). As a measure of performance, the performance
index (PI) integrating speed and accuracy was used.
The pooled data from the present study and studies described in
Table 3 include a total of 2692 subjective thermal sensation votes
Fig. 3. Self-estimated performance as a function of time during exposure in the
office.
1060 L. Lan et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 1057–1062

Table 1
Physical measurements (mean ± standard deviation) describing the environmental conditions under the two exposure conditions.

Condition (intended Air temperature (◦ C) Operative Relative Light (lux) CO2 (ppm) Noise (dB(A))
temperature) temperature (◦ C) humidity (%)

22 ◦ C 23.3 ± 0.8 22.6 ± 0.6 21 ± 7 241 ± 60 801 ± 70 56 ± 5

30 ◦ C 31.1 ± 1.3 29.4 ± 1.2 22 ± 3 225 ± 64 1047 ± 145 55 ± 4

Table 2
Performance of addition, text typing and the neurobehavioural tasks; a negative relative change in the performance () indicates that performance decreased at 30 ◦ C
compared with 22 ◦ C; effect sizes (ES) of 0.1, 0.25 and 0.4 indicate small, moderate and large effects, respectively.

Task Temp. (◦ C) Performance indexa Accuracy Reaction timeb

(Metrics) Value  ES P (%) P (s) P

Text typing 22 char/min 143.6 0.3% 0.11 0.75 98.1 0.11 0.538 0.64
30 144.0 97.4 0.528
Text typing with feedback# 22 char/min 133.1 −10.6% 0.40 0.23 – – – –
30 120.3
Addition* , # 22 units/min 4.67 −11.7% 1.15 0.01 94.1 0.81 19.9 0.01
30 4.11 93.8 22.1
Addition with feedback *,#
22 units/min 3.02 −8.2% 0.83 0.03 – – – –
30 2.77
Redirection# 22 units/s 0.932 −3.0% 0.58 0.10 97.4 0.78 1.084 0.08
30 0.905 97.2 1.116
Digit span 22 span 7.69 −2.8% 0.27 0.44 – – – –
30 7.48
Grammatical reasoning# 22 units/s 0.165 −25.0% 0.71 0.06 87.8 0.39 6.764 0.05
30 0.132 85.7 7.811
Visual learning #
22 memory 90.0 −1.4% 0.22 0.51 – – – –
30 capacity 88.8
Stroop# 22 units/s 0.513 −9.5% 0.59 0.09 98.5 0.02 1.955 0.08
30 0.469 97.7 2.151
Stroop with feedback* , # 22 units/s 0.517 −11.2% 1.01 0.01 – – – –
30 0.465
Calculation #
22 units/s 0.236 −4.6% 0.62 0.08 97.0 0.21 4.381 0.05
30 0.226 96.0 4.600
Calculation with feedback* , # 22 units/s 0.225 −9.7% 0.93 0.01 – – – –
30 0.205
Visual RT* , # 22 units/s 1.672 −6.8% 0.86 0.02 97.6 0.36 0.595 0.05
30 1.566 97.1 0.648
*
Significant effects were observed (P < 0.05).
#
The effects were large (ES > 0.45).
a
PI combines accuracy and reaction time.
b
Reaction time for text typing = 60/(char/min) and for addition = 60/(units/min).

with corresponding performance measurement. These data were created and it is shown in Fig. 5. This relationship is as follows:
first standardized with Eq. (1) where xi,j is the performance in con-
RP = −0.0351tsv3 − 0.5294tsv2 − 0.215tsv + 99.865 (2)
dition j of subject i, n is the number of conditions.
x where RP is the relative performance when compared to the max-
s(xi,j ) =  i,j (1) imum performance and tsv is the thermal sensation vote (−3 to +3
1/n x
1≤j≤n i,j
on the ASHRAE seven-point thermal sensation scale).
Standardized data were included in a polynomial regression
model (depicted in Fig. 4) to reflect the same trend of the rela- 4. Discussion
tionship as in the previous relationship [14,18], using the SPSS 13.0
program to test the model’s significance. Analysis indicates that Measurement of productivity is the essential component of a
the derived model is statistically significant (P < 0.05). Using the relationship between IEQ and productivity. Task performance is
relationship shown in Fig. 4, the change of performance in relation usually used to reflect productivity and the speed at which the tasks
to maximum performance as a function of thermal sensation was are performed is one of the common measures of performance.

Table 3
Summary of studies [21,22] from which the data was used to develop the relationship between performance and thermal sensation together with the data from the present
study.

Environment of the study Air temperature ta (◦ C) PMV predictiona Performance measurement

Field laboratory (clo value is 19 −1.95 Neurobehoavioural tasks measuring such abilities as visual search,
0.5 clo; each session lasted 24 −0.43 memory, logic reasoning, spatial imagination, arithmetical
for 80 min) 27 0.51 calculation, and sustained attention etc.
32 2.11
Field laboratory (clo value is 17 −1.36 Neurobehavioural tasks measuring such abilities as visual search,
0.9 clo; each session lasted 21 −0.43 memory, logic reasoning, spatial imagination, arithmetical
for 120 min) 28 1.25 calculation, reading, tracking, and sustained attention etc.
a
Following assumptions were made to calculate PMV: mean radiant temperature is equal to air temperature (i.e. operative temperature equals the air temperature);
relative humidity is 40%; air velocity is 0.15 m/s; activity level is set to be 1.2 m.
 L. Lan et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 1057–1062
Fig. 4. The relationship between thermal sensation and performance developed
based on the data obtained in the present study and studies described in Table 3.
Performance greater or lesser than 100 indicates people performed better or worse
than their average when exposed to different thermal conditions.
Accuracy is another aspect of performance and has been defined
as freedom from error in discrete tasks [27]. In IEQ-productivity
research, metrics of work speed have more often been used to
measure performance than metrics of work accuracy. For many
types of task, however there exists a speed-accuracy trade-off [28],
meaning that within the capacity of a person he/she can either per-
form the task very fast with a large number of errors or very slow
with very few errors (the effects on performance measures occur
in two opposite directions). Sometimes only one of these two per-
formance indicators is affected by the environmental conditions.
In the present work it was decided to integrate speed and accuracy
into one measure defining the overall effect of environmental con-
ditions on performance. It should, however, be acknowledged that
such an approach may not always be right and further work on this
issue is needed [29].
The relationship developed in this study is compared with
the relationships developed previously in Figs. 5 and 6. It should
be noticed that among all relationships between either air tem-
perature or thermal sensation and performance the relationship
developed in the present work shows the lowest effect of thermal
environment on performance.
Fig. 5 shows that in case of Jensen’s et al. model [18], the opti-
mum performance occurs when the thermal sensation vote is −1.
Fig. 5. Comparison of the relationship between thermal sensation and relative
performance developed in this work with previously developed relationships by
Roelofsen [17], Jensen et al. [18], and Seppänen et al. [14].
1061
Fig. 6. Comparison of the relationship between air temperature and relative per-
formance developed in the present study with previously developed relationships
by Berglund et al. [12] and Seppänen et al. [14].
This is lower than the value predicted from the model developed
here showing optimum performance at about −0.25; also some dif-
ferences can be observed on the warm side of the thermal sensation
vote. Interestingly, Kosonen and Tan reported similar results show-
ing that the peak level of productivity occurs when the PMV value
is −0.21 at a temperature of 20 ◦ C with a relatively heavy clo value
(1.16 clo) [19]. A potential reason for the observed discrepancy can
be the type of data used in the present study and that of Jensen et
al. [18]; they used only the performance of addition while in the
present study a wide range of tasks including arithmetical calcula-
tion, typing, logical reasoning and tasks examining memory were
used. The model of Roelofsen [17] indicates even greater effects of
thermal discomfort on productivity compared with the relation-
ships developed in the present work and that of Jensen et al. The
reason is probably a limited set of data used by Roelofsen to create
the relationship.
In Fig. 5 it was also attempted to compare the relationship
developed in the present work with the relationship developed
by Seppänen et al. [14], showing performance as a function of air
temperature. To estimate thermal sensation votes based on Sep-
pänen et al.’s relationship, it was assumed that the mean radiant
temperature is equal to air temperature (i.e., operative temperature
equals the air temperature); relative humidity is 40%; air velocity is
0.15 m/s; activity level is set to be 1.2 met; the clo value is assumed
to be 0.9 clo when the air temperature is lower than 24 ◦ C and 0.5
clo when the air temperature is above 24 ◦ C. These assumptions
seem reasonable considering that most of the data used for creat-
ing Seppänen et al.’s relationship were derived from studies carried
out in moderate/cold climates. Although in the present study the
RH was 20%, the assumption of RH at 40% has a negligible effect on
PMV [30], but is more realistic. Fig. 5 shows that the relationship
developed in the present study is in good agreement with Seppä-
nen et al.’s relationship only when the thermal sensation is near
neutral but there is systematic discrepancy otherwise, especially
on the warm side. This is even better seen in Fig. 6 illustrating the
relationship between air temperature and performance developed
by Seppänen et al. [14] and developed in the present work after
estimating air temperature from thermal sensation votes using the
above assumptions. The discrepancy could again be due to different
data sets used but it is interesting to observe how small differences
between the relationship developed here and by Seppanen et al.
occur. Fig. 6 shows also the relationship developed by Berglund
et al. [12] which is based only on the performance of wireless
operators and is much different from the other two relationships
presented.
1062 L. Lan et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 1057–1062
The relationship developed in the present work is limited to
some laboratory studies examining the effects of temperature on
performance of some mental tasks and tasks simulating office work.
It is not clear how well the data apply to performance in actual office
environments and further work is needed to validate the present
relationship as well as the relationships developed in the past. In
spite of this level of uncertainty, the relationships developed may
provide engineers with a useful tool during design and operation
of buildings.
5. Conclusions
• Experiments with subjects have shown that performance is neg-
atively affected by thermal discomfort caused by elevated air
temperature.
• A quantitative relationship between thermal sensation and per-
formance was established.
• The relationship seems to suggest that the optimum performance
is achieved when people feel slightly cool thereby it makes sense
to set the PMV limits in workplaces in the range between −0.5
and 0.
• Further verification of the results with a greater number of sub-
jects in actual workplaces and using other metrics for measuring
performance than were used in the present study is needed.
• The relationship developed between thermal sensation and per-
formance can be a useful tool to predict productivity loss due to
thermal discomfort in the cost-benefit calculations pertaining to
indoor environments.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the International Centre for Indoor
Environment and Energy, the General Program and the Key Pro-
gram of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.
50878125 and 50838009). The authors would like to thank Ms
Justyna Krzyżanowska for her contribution to this study and Dr. Jørn
Toftum for his assistance in preparing the computerized battery
with performance tasks.
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