In health care design, change your conversation and change the world
Thursday, March 27th, 2008If you really want to convince health care clients to pay for green design, you need to change the way you talk to them.
That’s what presenters at a health care design workshop said this morning.
The workshop was part of the Engineering Vision 2030 conference, and was led by architect Duncan Griffin of NBBJ and engineer Dick Moeller of CDI Engineers. The two are involved in research for new green health care standards.
Talking to them differently is key to convincing medical clients to go green, Griffin and Moeller said.
Energy is not a big deal to health care clients compared to some of their other costs, Moeller said. So you need to show them how reducing energy affects the things that really cost them and that they care about most.
What matters to them? Employee retention and productivity, and patient health and safety.
So rather than assuming the client wants to reduce energy consumption, engineers and architects will get further showing clients studies on how more exposure to natural light speeds healing time. Or by talking about how different energy systems affect air quality and employee health.
If you speak their language, they’re likely to listen. And that could have a huge impact. While health care buildings make up only 4 percent of U.S. buildings by square footage, Griffin said, they make up 9 percent of building energy consumed.
