A leading environmental architect has called for proper post-completion measurement of buildings to improve their environmental performance.

Writing on sustainability in the British Council for Offices’ Best Practice Guide for Offices 2005, published this week, Rab Bennetts, head of Bennetts Associates Architects, hit out at the property industry for not assessing completed buildings.

He said: “The property industry can make a start by measuring the performance of buildings and by sharing the results so that everyone can learn from good and not-so-good results.

“It is extraordinary that routine post-occupancy assessment, which compares actual with predicted performance, is almost absent in the industry’s culture, such is the dislocation between the provider of the building and the occupier.”

Bennetts also expressed concerns about the IT sector, which he said had “little regard for its energy consumption”.