As was expected, the health impact of materials and indoor environmental quality indicator was deemed the most important in the user survey while considering all respondents. This indicator also dominated in all different respondent groups, it was among the three most important indicators for all individual buildings, all genders and all age groups. Also expectedly, the health impact of materials and indoor environmental quality indicator had the lowest realisation rating considering all respondents. This is likely due to the tangible nature of the indicator, which makes it easy for users to understand and point out. The health impact indicator is also something that may naturally interest people more, as it has a direct connection to one’s own well-being. It is also possible that employees of the tenant companies need to have some level of expertise in this area of sustainability, due to a need for providing internal sustainability reporting.
As expected, some indicators, such as gender equity, inter and intra –generational equity and non-discrimination quite clearly divided the respondents between different age groups and genders due to their gendered or age related nature. However, some indicators that were not expected to be as divisive between different respondent groups, such as safety and health impacts of materials and indoor environmental quality, also divided the respondents rather clearly between genders and age groups. Divisions between respondents working buildings
were reported as expected, mostly relating to the physical attributes of buildings and community vitality. The found differences between different respondent groups support the made decision to divide results between these demographics. It is immensely important to note the different needs and opinions of these individual groups in order to be able to further develop social sustainability for all people.
Non-discrimination was found especially important within younger respondents and female respondents or those that chose not to answer the question about their gender. This might be due to these groups being discriminated against more in the workplace than older or male respondents, which in turn makes them more aware of the importance of non-discrimination.
Safety was especially important to female respondents as well as older respondents, which may indicate that these groups tend to feel more unsafe at the workplace or in society as a whole and thus feel a greater need for safety measures to take place at the business campus.
Gender equity also divided respondents quite clearly between age groups, it was more important for younger users and was noticeably less important within the 50-59 and over 60 years age groups. This may be due to changing gender roles and norms in society, which younger people have already been growing up with but the older generation might still be getting used to. Interestingly, male respondents seem to find gender equity more important than female respondents, as it got a higher rating from male respondents.
Social mixing/hard social infrastructure was among the least important indicators among all genders and for all other age groups in the user survey, except for the under 30s. This is not surprising in light of the open feedback on this indicator, which showed that many respondents did not understand what social mixing had to do with a business campus. They felt that it would be an indicator suited only for residential areas and planning. The fact that only the youngest respondents found it even somewhat important might signal that the younger generation is more accustomed to working outside of their own office and in collaboration with others and thus find the provision of common spaces and meetings etc.
more important.
The diversity and equal opportunity indicator was deemed in the bottom three regarding importance by all respondents, which might be due to it being more related to leasing than actual personal use of the campus. The indicator was defined as “provision of leasable spaces for diverse users and functions, for example in different sizes, on different floors, in different conditions and in different price points and lease options (permanent/temporary, flat rental/turnover)”, which may feel quite distant for a user or an employee that has no say in actually making the lease agreements.
Accessibility by bike was found especially unimportant by the youngest and the oldest of the respondents. For the older respondents this may indicate that they are more accustomed to traveling by car, which can also be seen in their high ratings for the importance of accessibility by car indicator. The under 30 year olds however did not rate any spatial accessibility indicators as very important, which might be an indicator of the younger generation being more used to remote or mobile work and thus not being as dependent on the spatial accessibility of the workplace.
The realisation of the gender equity indicator was ranked especially high by male and older respondents. This may be due to the same reasoning as with the importance of gender equity.
Those who need it less and are satisfied with older gender norms and roles also find it best realised, since they do not see the possible shortcomings because they are not directly affected by them. The same reasoning can be seen in non-discrimination being rated best realised by male and over 60 year old respondents. However, interestingly also the under 30
year olds found non-discrimination as being one of the best realised indicators, which does not have a clear explanation.
Inter and intra -generational equity was ranked rather highly on the user survey by the 50-59 year olds, the under 30s and the over 60s. This can be seen as a signal of inter and intra – generational equity being overall quite well realised within the business campus, as it is seen as that by both ends of the age spectrum.
On the other hand, community vitality was seen very poorly realised by all respondents.
Community vitality especially stood out as badly realised within respondents from Hiomotie 6 and Takomotie 8, which might be due to the general dissatisfaction of at least one Takomotie 8 tenant about the move to the campus and the terms of their lease agreement, which was clearly communicated through open feedback in the survey. For Hiomotie 6, it might be due to the building having multiple new tenants that either have not even properly moved in yet or have only moved in before the corona virus crisis struck, and thus have not had the possibility to form tight relationships with other stakeholders in the campus yet.
Male and over 50 year old respondents were the least satisfied on the health impacts of materials and indoor environmental quality within the campus. This may indicate that there are some health impacts that are mainly experienced by older male users or that these user groups are simply more critical towards the health impact of materials and indoor environmental quality.
Satisfaction on aesthetic aspects was especially low within respondents from Hiomotie 8, Kornetintie 3 and Kornetintie 6, which may be due to those buildings being among the oldest in the campus and ones where no major overhauls have been executed in recent years.
Regarding the service provider survey, the employment and education category was deemed the most important by all respondents. This is quite clearly due to the business campus actually being the indirect employer of the individual service providers, without the business campus they would have less or no work. Interestingly, the employment indicator also had the greatest difference between the realisation and importance ratings of the indicator with importance gaining a rating over 0,6 higher than the realisation. This might be simply due to the fact that as the most important indicator it is also under the most scrutiny, as it affects the daily life of respondents.
From the individual indicators in the service provider survey, gender equity and non-discrimination stood out as being of little importance to the male respondents but having full scores for both importance and realisation from the female respondents. This is quite interesting, since the low importance of these indicators to men could mean that not much is done in order to promote them, but still the women seem to feel that they realise extremely well within the business campus.
Accessibility by car was also an interesting indicator as it was very important to male respondents but had little importance to female respondents. This could simply be due to the female respondents using other means of transportation for work or possibly them being used to working in places with worse accessibility by car thus not giving it much thought.
The safety and security indicators also stood out in the service provider survey, they have a rather high score of importance in all age groups except for the under 30s. The importance of safety and security can be explained by most of the respondents working in construction or maintenance, where safety and security are especially important in their daily work. Since the sample size for the service provider survey is so small, only nine respondents, these
irregularities might simply be due to not having extensive data. This will need to be looked into in further research, as there is no clear explanation with this sample size and data set.
Regarding the response rates of the user survey, there was a rather clear distortion towards the importance of categories having noticeably higher response rates compared to the response rates of realisation of the same categories. Equity especially stood out by only having a considerably low response rate even though it was rated the best realised category, while non-discrimination was found the best realised indicator and also got a low response rate. This may give reason to suspect that the questions were not fully understood and that lead to either not answering the question or rating it highly just because the nuances of the indicator were not clear to the respondent.
Regarding the non-discrimination indicator there is also quite a clear difference between male and female respondents’ answers. The male respondents rated the realisation of non-discrimination noticeably higher than women did and the response rate was also significantly higher for male respondents. This could possibly be due this indicator being less visible for male respondents in their daily life due to societal structures, which makes them rate it higher as it does not have such a personal effect on them. Females on the other hand may be more personally familiar with the indicator and thus give it more thought and also leave the question unanswered if they’re not sure about their answer.
Notable in the response rates for each individual indicator in the user survey is that the response rate for importance was higher than the response rate for realisation for each and every indicator. This is quite contradictory to the original assumption that the users would find it easier and more interesting to rate the realisation of indicators in their workplace even though they might not have a full understanding of the definition of the indicator. The realisation rating can be seen as a direct user satisfaction survey, where the respondents could voice their concerns and influence the future procedures in the campus. However, this was proven to be untrue, with users even giving a higher response rate for the importance of aesthetic aspects than the actual realisation of them. This is especially interesting, since the satisfaction on aesthetic aspects indicator simply asks users to rate how satisfied they are with the aesthetics of the spaces, which seems very straightforward. However, this distortion might be simply due to people being not very invested in answering the survey. It might be easier to simply give some importance rating to indicators even without properly understanding the indicator than to actually think about how it comes through in the business campus, which makes it easier and faster to just rate the importance and leave the realisation without an answer.
Four indicators in total had an especially low response rate concerning the realisation of indicators. These four indicators are social mixing/hard social infrastructure, social integration/soft social infrastructure, convertibility, and diversity and equal opportunity. The diversity and equal opportunity indicator may have a low response rate due to the same reasons that put it in the three least important indicators, being more related to leasing than actual personal use of the campus. For convertibility the same reasoning stands, it is more related to the leasing process as opposed to the daily life of users, which might have made it harder to grasp and to answer. The soft and hard social infrastructure indicators might have simply been too hard to understand. The open feedback shows that some users found that these indicators have more to do with planning of residential areas as opposed to an in-use business campus, and thus have not answered the questions at all. However, the reason behind the low response rates for the realisation of these indicators needs to be more closely studied in further research in order to gain a clear view of the reasoning.
Response rates in the service provider survey were much higher in general compared to the user survey, with only three questions getting a response rate under 70%. Those three questions were the importance of accessibility by bike, the importance of accessibility by public transport and the realisation of accessibility by public transport. This may be explained by that the respondents of the service provider survey, who are mainly working in construction and thus possibly carrying heavy tools and safety gear with them, tend to use car as their means of transport and thus do not find other transportation methods as important.
Interesting findings of the study also include the dissatisfaction of some users on aspects that are determined by lease agreements of tenant companies rather than the general policy of the business campus. These include dissatisfaction on the allocation of parking spaces within the tenant company, the interior decoration or furnishing of leased spaces, location of the business campus and complaints about the price of additional user services to individual employees. This brings up questions about the possible differences between what most employees value in a working environment, as opposed to what the preferences of the deciding parties of the tenant company are while negotiating the lease contract and making the investment decision, as well as choosing the location. However, the survey did not differentiate between the formal status or position of respondents within their company, and thus there is no information on who, if any, of the respondents had opportunities to affect the choosing of the location or building, the terms of the lease agreement or design of spaces.
This will need to be address in possible future research on the topic in order to gain a clearer view of the opinions of different user groups.