Everything You Need to Know About WELL Certification
Key Takeaways:
WELL quickly established itself as a trusted health and wellness certification, adding extra value.
Certification requires proof of numerous wellness design features and a relatively small fee.
Since its inception in 2014, WELL has established itself as the foremost building wellness certification provider. Created by the International Well Building Institute, WELL Building Standards certify buildings based on the wellbeing and health of occupants. Thanks to a major advertising campaign that featured several major celebrities like Robert DeNiro and Lady Gaga, WELL certifications have quickly entered the public consciousness, pushing for anyone entering a building to check for a WELL seal. The advertising splash is an effort to expand WELL certifications beyond the roughly 4,000 properties currently certified.
Certification Factors
Now in their second iteration, WELL standards are broken down by owner-occupied properties, where the owners use the majority of the space, and WELL Core, targeting assets where the owners lease most of the space to tenants. Each of the two sections focuses on the same key health areas: Air quality, water quality, nourishment, light, movements, thermal comfort, sounds, materials, mind, community, and innovation.
Because of the holistic nature of wellness, a high degree of variability is possible in WELL ratings, which range from bronze to platinum. WELL assessments can be done by Green Business Certification Inc (GBCI) or other Well Performance Testing Organizations, which are trained by GBCI.
WELL also offers other certification programs, like its popular Health-Safety Rating that has been advertised during the pandemic as a way to ensure occupants remain safe. Based on the broader WELL Building Standard, the Health-Safety Rating focuses on design features that are effective against the spread of diseases, like bacteria, viruses, and fungi.
Building owners must meet any 15 of a possible 21 design features. Features target 5 major categories; cleaning and sanitization procedures, emergency preparedness, health service resources, air, and water quality management, and stakeholder engagement and communication. Owners can get their unique features added to qualify if they can prove the features achieve the goals of WELL.
Cost
Meant to be widely adopted, WELL Health-Safety Ratings start at $4,200 for a single location or $2,730 for a small business. Several discounts are available for larger portfolios and properties. WELL also offers a portfolio-wide option, which doesn’t grade every individual property, but an entire portfolio with an overarching grade. Enrollment in WELL Portfolio starts at $25,000 with annual participation costing $0.01 per square foot, up to $250,000. WELL-certified buildings and portfolios agree to be listed in WELL’s database and on their website.
Much like LEED, which has become a major standard for energy certifications, WELL has become a major standard for wellness certifications. The right business model and a global pandemic that’s forced property owners into investing more into safety measures for occupants have seen WELL certifications take off in just a few short years. WELL buildings have been certified in 62 different counties, totaling close to 600 million square feet.
