What's the pedigree?

The BUS occupant survey was started in 1985 as part of the first study of sick buildings in the UK - the Office Environment Survey, by Sheena Wilson and Alan Hedge (Building Use Studies, London, 1987).

Subsequently:

• the main questionnaire was significantly shortened in 1990;
• many of the health-related questions were incorporated in the BRE/Royal Society of Health questionnaire and dropped from the BUS survey;
• benchmarks were introduced for the UK in 1995, Australian benchmarks were added in 2004; New Zealand in 2006 and an international 'green building' benchmark set is in 2006;
• licensing was begun in 1995;
• the BUS Workplace questionnaire became the two-page standard in 1997;
• the BUS Probe questionnaire is now a variant of the standard version and was introduced in 1995;
• the internet version was introduced in 1998, subsequently shortened as a variant of the one-page version (see next point). A 2-page standard version is also available in internet format ;
• the one-page version was developed in 2002, primarily for use with energy certification, but has proved popular with a wider audience;
• Australian questionnaires were revised in 2008;
• other language variants are introduced as demand required.

In all, the questionnaire has been used in over 600 buildings since its inception in 1985. The current database has 380 buildings from 17 countries.