DutchNews, August 5,
2015
The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that if the
office thermostat is set for men, it will be too low for women, forcing them to
put on woollies in the height of summer.
This is because women are smaller and
generate less metabolic heat than men which means they will not feel
comfortable in office temperatures set for the opposite sex.
By the same logic,
if the thermostat is set for Europeans it will be too low for Asians, who
weigh, on average, 30% less, the paper states.
Maastricht University researchers
Boris Kingma and Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt say that energy consumption in
homes and offices accounts for some 30% of carbon dioxide emissions.
However, a
more realistic approach to the temperature needs of a building’s occupants will
lead to more efficiency in energy consumption and cut emissions, the
researchers say.
