Routines, Rigidity and Real Estate: Organisational Innovations in the Workplace

Finding ways to reduce the environmental impact of the existing building stock is an important element in climate change mitigation. This article examines environmentally focused organisational innovations in the corporate real estate industry. Organisational innovations are often overlooked as they cause considerable disruption to the daily routines of employees. In this article, the focal organisational innovation is the adoption of activity-based working. The study aims to uncover the barriers to activity-based working and to compare it to similar best practice strategies that aim to reduce cost and environmental impact. A case study office building has been analysed to examine the efficiency of the workplace arrangement strategy and the impact of this strategy on the building’s energy consumption. The results of the case study coupled with evidence from the global real estate industry suggest that activity-based working can deliver substantial benefits for the employer organisations and the employees. However, despite this it has not reached high levels of adoption on a global scale. This failure to achieve high levels of adoption is evidence of routine rigidity. This article highlights the importance of building occupancy in the future discussion on environmental impact reduction in the corporate real estate industry.