Energy-Related Changes in Office Buildings Following the COVID-19 Pandemic

Release date: July 25, 2024

We conducted an exploratory, web-only survey to learn about changes to commercial buildings brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The results will inform questionnaire development for the next Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS).

Although the survey results do not represent all commercial buildings or all offices, we found patterns in the data related to office buildings, which account for 68 of the 271 buildings in our responding sample. The number of people decreased in many of the responding office buildings, especially in large office buildings and office buildings with multiple businesses or organizations. We also observed changes in commercial building equipment that may affect energy consumption patterns.

We released a similar report about education buildings.