The effective measurement and dissemination of the impact of design on building users requires an evaluative shift away from measuring building performance towards measuring the outcomes experienced by people. This agenda shares considerable overlap with the emerging concept of 'social value' and it is proposed that social impact valuation methods could fill the postoccupancy quantification gap. A review of the social impact sector identifies Social Return on Investment (SROI) as the most developed method with a robust framework for implementation. SROI generates monetized results, anticipated to enhance transferability compared with typical post-occupancy evaluation summaries and facilitate the dissemination and usefulness of findings within the design and construction industry. An in-depth account is presented of a study that trials the six stage SROI method in three non-clinical healthcare buildings; interviews, focus groups, user surveys and financial valuation techniques are used. The SROI results are summarized and the discussion provides a critical reflection on the application of SROI to the built environment: the technical challenges faced, the modifications made as a result, and the lessons learnt from this process. The conclusion offers practical recommendations for future applications of SROI to the built environment.

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Considerable overlap exists between post-occupancy research evaluating building design quality and the concept of ‘social value’, popularised by its recent application to issues of the public realm. To outline this potential research agenda, the paper reviews design quality research on buildings in relation to users and their social context where the term ‘social context’ refers to building user group dynamics, a combination of organisational cultures, management strategies, and social norms and practices. The review is conducted across five key building types, namely housing, workplaces, healthcare, education, and the retail/service sector. Research commonalities and gaps are identified in order to build a more comprehensive picture of the design quality literature and its handling of users in their social context. The key findings concerning each building type are presented visually. It is concluded that the design quality field comprises a patchwork of relatively isolated studies of various building types, with significant potential for theoretical and empirical development through interdisciplinary collaboration. Users tend to be conceived as anonymous and autonomous individuals with little analysis of user identity or interaction. Further, the contextual impact of user group dynamics on the relationship between building design and building user is rarely addressed in the literature. Producing a more nuanced understanding of users in situ is proposed as an important area for future design quality research.

Due to recent studies and government policies, designers and facilities managers are becoming increasingly aware of the role of occupant behaviour in energy conservation in buildings. While the use of post-occupancy surveys and benchmark tools is widespread in the built environment, there is limited research on assessing environmental and energy saving behaviours – particularly in non-domestic buildings. This article focuses on the development and pilot-testing of a novel benchmarking tool for the assessment of behaviour change potential for energy saving in the workplace, with findings from an industrial case study comprising a manufacturing and office environment. Beyond the findings of the case study, the article aims to provide a methodological framework for an easy-to-use benchmarking tool of user-behaviour within the context of energy saving in factories and offices. Practical Implications: This article discusses the development and pilot-testing of a novel questionnaire-based benchmarking tool for the assessment of behaviour change potential for energy saving in office and industrial settings. Its application to a case-study from the manufacturing sector demonstrates that the tool is easy to use, and it provides valuable insights on areas for improvement in energy use within non-domestic buildings, with a focus on user behaviour and management approaches. The tool can be used in applied research, for example in intervention studies for comparison within the same organisation (before and after), and/or for benchmarking against the performance of similar organisations.