Climate change induced heat stress impact on workplace productivity in a net zero-carbon timber building towards the end of the century

Changing climate intensifies heat stress, resulting in a greater risk of workplace productivity decline in timber office buildings with low internal thermal mass. The impact of climate change induced heat exposure on indoor workplace productivity in timber office buildings has not been extensively researched. Therefore, further investigation to reduce the work capacity decline towards the end of the century is needed. Here, heat exposure in a net zero-carbon timber building near Brussels, Belgium, was evaluated using a reproducible comparative approach with different internal thermal mass levels. The analysis indicated that strategies with increased thermal mass were more effective in limiting the effects of heat exposure on workplace productivity. The medium and high thermal mass strategies reduced workplace productivity loss to 0.1% in the current, 0.3% and 0.2% in the midfuture, and 4.9% and 3.9% for future scenarios. In comparison, baseline with low thermal mass yielded a decline of 2.3%, 3.3%, and 8.2%. The variation in maximum and minimum wet-bulb globe temperatures were also lower for medium and high thermal mass strategies than for low thermal mass baseline. The study findings lead to the formulation of design guidelines, identification of research gaps, and recommendations for future work.