Bringing WELL to Bengaluru
At its first-ever Regional Summit in India, IWBI brought together an exceptional group of leaders to connect, learn and drive forward healthy buildings. Read on for five lessons learned from IWBI’s summit.
As India increases its efforts to foster health and well-being, momentum for healthy building practices is starting to soar. In fact, since 2020, the uptake of WELL has seen a fourfold increase.
In the last year, IWBI colleagues have visited India as the demand for well-being solutions in the built environment has continued to skyrocket. In June, IWBI hosted its first-ever WELL Regional Summit in Bengaluru, India to bring industry leaders and innovators together for an afternoon of inspiring conversation.
Lesson 1: India is big, and so is the appetite for well-being
The rapidly growing WELL community in India meant that staying in one city for the week was not an option. To connect with as many leaders as possible, team members traveled to three cities across the country. The week started with a visit to Mumbai to meet up with some of our WELL market leaders. The team enjoyed a site tour at Fractal and celebrated their WELL Platinum level certification achievement with a plaque ceremony and even squeezed in the chance to enjoy some Mumbai delicacies.
The team then traveled to Bengaluru for more meetings, idea-sharing and final summit preparations.
IWBI met with a team from Zyeta, one of our summit event sponsors and a driving force behind rising adoption of WELL in India. The Zyeta team hosted us at their beautiful WELL Health-Safety Rated co-working space 2Gether. Sadly, we didn’t have enough time to join in a game of pool or take a power nap in their kitted out space - yet another reason for us to come back!
Lesson 2: Celebrate good work
For our first-ever WELL Regional Summit in India, we welcomed over 85 industry professionals and market leaders at the beautiful Standard Chartered Bank Bengaluru campus at EcoWorld. IWBI Chief Operating Officer Prateek Khanna opened the session with valuable insights about the explosive demand for WELL globally (we’re talking more than 41,000 locations, and nearly five billion square feet in over 125 countries) and the inspiring adoption rates we are seeing in India, with over 895 assets enrolled in WELL and 140 WELL projects across WELL programs.
We celebrated our early adopters in the region, highlighting the inspiring achievements of market leaders such as Embassy REIT, which attained WELL Certification at 18 locations in March of this year; the most WELL Certifications from any WELL at Scale participant globally.
Nucleus Office Parks was also recognized for reaching its target of achieving the WELL Performance Rating across 15 locations in April 2023, making Nucleus Office Parks the first and largest WELL at scale Portfolio to achieve the WELL Performance Rating.
RMZ Corporation was celebrated as the first organization globally to achieve the WELL Health-Safety Rating in 2020. Our summit host, Standard Chartered Bank, which enrolled in WELL at scale in 2022, was acknowledged for its commitment to health after expanding its commitment to achieve the WELL Health-Safety Rating across 900 of its locations around the globe.
Watch our WELL in India video with highlights from our first-ever Regional Summit in Bengaluru.
Lesson 3: Harness the power of community for knowledge sharing
Jack Noonan, Vice President, APAC, led a session on the return on investment (ROI) for WELL Certification and WELL at scale participation. This was followed by a panel discussion with Deepa Sathiaram of En3 Solutions (and our WELL AP of the Year 2022!), Kumar Ramaiah of JLL India, Ashwini Kumar of Embassy REIT and Magendra Kumar of Standard Chartered Bank India, who shared their own WELL journeys and experiences from both client and consultant perspectives.
It served as a reminder of how impactful it is to hear from others on their unique WELL journeys and experiences.
Lesson 4: Nourishment is key, and goes hand-in-hand with community
Highlighting the importance of the WELL Nourishment concept, IWBI hosted an intimate lunch-and-learn at Brookfield Properties with a group of WELL community members in the region. Sarah Edwards, the founder of Copper + Cloves, provided a nutritious plant-based meal for all attendees to enjoy, along with a short introduction on the importance of choosing wholesome nutrient dense ingredients along with eating the rainbow to fuel our bodies for a productive afternoon of inspiring conversation.
Attendees enjoyed a ruby beets cooler made from beetroot juice, lemon and mint, a rainbow bowl, smoky muhammara dip with sourdough and a streusel cake with lemon-cardamom drizzle for dessert.
Lesson 5: Virtual is convenient, but nothing beats face-to-face conversation
Virtual calls and meetings have certainly bridged the communication gap between industry drivers and leaders, but what we learned during our week in India was that nothing compares to being able to come together in person to share, brainstorm and connect in real time to take actions that can improve the well-being of those we care about most.
Curious to learn what’s next for WELL?
Be sure to check out our global calendar of events for the latest IWBI sessions around the world.
We hope to see you at a WELL event soon!
