Triple bottom line space: productivity paradoxes in FM

Purpose / Theory: To argue that the "productivity nut‟ means cracking FM thinking rather than external measurements. FM is not sexed-up building services engineering – it should return to its roots and consider how it impacts on particular businesses. "Nut‟ has an old European meaning of "profit‟ and FM's challenge is to recapture that sense. The FM "nut‟ is the advantage, or profit, a facility generates: the High German "nutzen‟. "Nut‟ is also colloquial English for "head‟. The process offered requires "doing in the current FM nut‟, i.e. finding new language and measures to express results.

Design/methodology/approach: The argument is illustrated by reference to an ongoing action research project that challenges the conventional guidelines applied to the management of academic workspace in the UK.

Findings: It illustrates the "cost of cheap‟; the downside of the search for building efficiency rather than business productivity.

Originality/value: In a sense the case is not original in that it exemplifies what has been called for many times already. It does however demonstrate the startling combination of business benefits, cost saving and carbon reduction achievable when a workspace / place is approached from a business rather than a building perspective.