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The WELL Building Standard encourages the development of buildings that place people’s health and wellness at the core of design. Addressing behaviour, operations, and design, it’s a performance-based system that interprets the science of physical and social environments to hold the built environment to a higher standard. Today, WELL has been used by over 4,000 projects in more than 60 countries.
The original WELL v1 blueprint has been expanded on in WELL v2, which now encompasses 112 features and 10 concepts, a lengthier repertoire. Learn about the difference between the two schemes and which is right for you with this article - below we focus on the most up to date WELL v2.
WELL v2 is a comprehensive roadmap and certification service with inbuilt professional support and rigorous third-party assessment, used for improving the quality of indoor spaces for the people using them with inspired, intentional design decisions. Humans spend on average 90% of their lives indoors, hence the importance of quality indoor spaces.
Human health and the built environment are linked. Evidence suggests that companies who invest in strategies to improve the health and wellbeing of their employees experience enhanced performance and secure better financial returns. Healthy workers are happy workers, and wellbeing positively correlates with better employee engagement. Regulators, investors, and other stakeholders are also prioritising human, social, and environmental criteria to better understand risk and return, ascribe value, and execute business decisions.
WELL v2 can positively impact your business, strengthen your ESG impact, and support the health and wellbeing of your people. For landlords operating in an increasingly competitive market, it is also an opportunity to command premium value for your properties.
The WELL Building Standard is a performance-based rating system and global benchmark for health in buildings, with every project verified through on-site testing. The architecture of the rating system consists of ten concepts, each containing preconditions and optimisations. Preconditions define the integral components of a WELL Certified space, and are universally set for all projects. All preconditions are mandatory for certification.
Optimisations can be selected once preconditions are met. These contribute towards your overall WELL score, resulting in either Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Platinum Certification.
These categories are assessed throughout WELL v2 certification:
For business leaders who want to prioritise health and wellbeing throughout their entire organisation or real estate portfolio, WELL can be implemented at scale and across multiple locations. With annual fees ranging from £24,000 to £200,000, WELL at scale is a roadmap with scope to:
With WELL certified professionals inhouse, and board-certified assessors in other sustainability accreditation schemes such as Fitwel and LEED, our Workplace Strategy team helps clients understand their ESG goals and priorities, and primes them to embark on WELL certification.
WELL marks a commitment to creating people-first places. Instead of assessing the built environment through a lens of environmental sustainability, WELL is catered towards the social: all about the interplay between design and human health, and how the former can determine and improve the latter. It is scalable and globally applicable, and responsive and adaptable to fit any environment or organisation seeking to elevate human health and promote wellbeing for all.
Your workplace holds enormous potential to improve your business performance. Get in touch today, and we will unlock that potential together.
