Why WELL?
We spend 90% of our time indoors – that’s a fact. The built environment that surrounds us has a critical impact on our health, wellbeing and productivity. It shapes our habits and can to drive us toward healthy and unhealthy choices influencing our health through the quality of our surroundings. Today, employees are demanding better choices in their workplace and the market is responding. Employers, building owners, architects, designers and builders are slowly responding and developing healthier built environments – and they expect this trend to continue.
The WELL Building Standard® provides resources for creating healthy environments. It introduces a model for design and construction that, “codifies best practices and presents a performance-based system for measuring, certifying and monitoring features of the built environment that impact human health”. Well Building Standard takes a holistic approach, addressing behavior, operations and design all facets that effect our health.
The Seven Concepts of the WELL Building Standard® are: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Fitness, Comfort, Mind
The International Well Building Institute was launched in 2013 by Delos following a Clinton Global Initiative commitment by Delos founder Paul Sciallato to “improve the way people live by developing spaces that enhance occupant health and quality of life by sharing the WELL Building Standard globally”. Since then, there have been a number of projects that have been certified in either the silver, gold, or platinum standard.
People who work in WELL certified environments have expressed the positive impacts their WELL offices have on productivity and performance. The first office to be WELL Certified™, a pilot program at CBRE corporate headquarters, employees responded with the following survey feedback:
83% feel more productive
100% said that clients are interested in their new way of working
92% said the new space has created a positive effect on their health and wellbeing
94% said that the new space has a positive impact on their business performance
93% said that they are able to more easily collaborate with others
Source: CBRE Global Corporate Headquarters Los Angeles, California, Workplace 360 Study. 2014.
Learn more about how the WELL Building Standard can change the way we live by, “solving health problems before they are created” according to former President Bill Clinton. The Well building standard and the certification process are available from the WELL Building Institute.