“When we first began to develop the WELL Building Standard, many were discussing environmental sustainability but there was less of a focus on human health and wellness in the built environment,” recalls Paul Scialla, IWBI’s founder. “As a growing body of research continues to underscore the impact indoor spaces can have on the health and wellbeing of occupants, it
is becoming increasingly clear environmental sustainability and human health and wellness in the built environment go hand-in-hand. From the quality of the air in a space to the amount of daylight entering to the ‘walkability’ of the building location, there are many design, construction and operation decisions that can contribute to a person’s wellbeing.”
Simply stated, WELL is like a nutrition label for a building, providing transparency on the quality of a building’s environment. Scialla says the rating system focuses on seven categories of building performance, including air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind. Much like LEED, WELL projects earn points on a scorecard that represents the aggregate score for each of the above categories and, like their predecessors, WELL projects can achieve Silver, Gold or Platinum certification.
While WELL can be applied to many real- estate sectors, Scialla says WELL version 1 is currently optimized for commercial and institutional office buildings and has seen particularly wide adoption among the corporate community. He notes Fortune 500 companies, like CBRE and TD Bank, have been some of the quickest to pursue WELL, recognizing the importance of design factors that go into creating a healthy workplace, from proximity to bike parking to biophilic elements, circadian lighting, indoor air quality, healthy food access and stairwell design, for example.
“As we continue to grow the healthy- building movement, we look forward to expanding WELL among other real-estate sectors,” Scialla adds.
Challenges to Adoption
Part of the difficulty in getting the market to adopt a new standard like this—as was the case with LEED—is a matter of education and messaging.
“I think the most challenging part is the awareness about the importance of this standard,” observes Markous Gad, sustainability specialist at Stantec, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. “Similar to the LEED standard when it started 20 years ago—at that time it was new and sometimes the question of ‘Who cares about energy savings and carbon-dioxide emissions?’ [came up], but by the time we built awareness and spread the message to our colleagues and clients, then we start to see some response to that. I think the same situation applies [to WELL]; it will take some time to spread the message and to educate building professionals and clients about the benefits.”
Another perceived barrier to adopting a standard, such as WELL, is cost, and some building professionals assume the endeavor will be an expensive one. However, as Scialla points out, “WELL building decisions are not necessarily more costly decisions, but more conscientious decisions.” Noting costs vary by project, Scialla points to early evidence in some cases where incremental hard costs as low as 0 to 1 percent compared to base-line construction have been realized (particularly for projects pursuing WELL Core and Shell). Additionally, he says 90 percent of the costs of a building are the people inside, so the prospects for addressing them are vast.
“Whether it’s a building owner looking to differentiate their space so they can lease out to tenants or whether it is companies looking to retain and attract employees, enhance productivity or potentially reduce health-care costs, WELL has the potential to offer a valuable return on investment,” he says.
In terms of the existing building stock, there are some unique challenges with pursuing WELL certification, but none are insurmountable.