How Much Does CO2 Affect Employees’ Productivity?

There’s no doubt that ventilation indoors must be carried out as energy efficiently as possible; too much of it will waste energy and too little of it makes your employees unhappy. But this is not only about the discontent of those working for you. Lately other issues have emerged about the impact of elevated CO2 levels in offices, specifically how employees’ mental skills are affected.

A recent study conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) concluded that demanding abilities like strategic skills and crisis response were reduced remarkably when there was only a slight change of 100 ppm in the CO2 level. The study shows clearly that managing tasks that are more demanding becomes much harder with the increased CO2 levels, which doesn’t only plummet the efficiency of your employees but may lead to disappointing or even faulty business decisions. And how expensive is that?

Let’s take a quick look at the costs. Employee costs represent 90% of all operating costs of a typical office environment. With right ventilation and accurate measurement of CO2, a company with 100 employees may save up to 9000 euros annually – a company with over 1000 employees would be looking at cost savings worth millions of euros.

Although there might be many reasons for employees’ dissatisfaction or reduced performance, CO2 is easy to measure to make sure that the air in the office is optimal for working.