Climate Change, Human Health and the Built Environment, an EMEA Roundtable

In November 2021, we presented an EMEA roundtable on Climate Change, Human Health and the Built Environment, where we discussed the relationships between human, organizational and community health, and climate change in building-level adaptation practices with sustainability leaders.

The issues of climate change and human health are too often seen as having competing needs that require sacrifice at some level—a trade-off between environmental impact and personal health needs. IWBI CEO Rachel Hodgon stated, “Climate change is a human health issue, and the same measures that nurture the planet also nurture the people that are living on it. What our buildings exhale, we inhale, what our cars exhale, we breathe in.”

On the back of COP26, we are all looking at climate change and its imposing implications. Increases in temperature threaten air quality, increase food insecurity and exacerbate illnesses and the spreading of diseases – all of which magnify impacts to mental and physical health.

Ann Marie Aguilar, Senior Vice President, EMEA, IWBI, noted, “even as we continue to put focus on the role of buildings in mitigating climate change, at IWBI we believe that our focus on health and well-being of the people in the buildings is synergistic to this work.”

The intent of this roundtable was to bring the researchers and practitioners together and foster collaboration, which is the reason for the development of IWBI’s Global Research Agenda. Angela Loder, Vice President Research, IWBI highlighted the need for such a synergistic approach, where other research operated under siloed divisions such as ‘air quality and health’, or ‘physical activity and heart disease’. Angela noted that “The GRA provides a unified and conceptual model to drive interdisciplinary research and collaboration.”

The key takeaway from our GRA Europe Climate Change Brief was that despite promising sustainability initiatives in Europe, there is a need to ensure that the role of health is a fundamental consideration in future plans that go beyond only addressing Covid-19.

Filip Elland from Castellum provided an ‘owners’ perspective, sharing that the 5 trends Castellum expect to see soon are health and wellbeing, and climate risk and transition. Filip noted that “we spend 87 percent of our time indoors, and buildings are responsible for 39 percent of the global energy related emissions and with a growing population we need 50 percent more energy by 2050.” Castellum’s agenda for the sustainable city focuses on 4 target areas: The Planet, Future Proofing, Well-being and Social Responsibility.

For the ‘Consultants’ perspective, Thomas Vazakas from Cushman & Wakefield explained how they advise clients to improve the performance of all four agendas, enabling them to advance beyond typical ESG targets and work on climate change and health as an interconnected topic. Thomas said that “for the first time in recent real estate history, we have four different and equally powerful agendas coming together which affect the way we design, build, operate and occupy our buildings. These are wellbeing, climate science, smart buildings, and post covid recovery.”

These themes all work together. ‘A smart building can make it easier to measure and reduce energy consumption, quantify key parameters such as air quality and daylight, and how these all affect the wellbeing of the building’s users.’

Adhishesh Sood from Honeywell presented on climate change from a ‘Manufacturing’ perspective. Adhishesh noted: “Approximately 50% of all new product introduction, development or research across these business groups is directed towards those that improve environmental and social outcomes.”

Evolving past this, Honeywell ensures that their product portfolio not only concentrates on the sustainability of buildings in terms of emissions, but also aligns their buildings through WELL at scale so that they can begin to measure health and wellness metrics.

At Pittsburgh Airport, for example, Adhishesh stated “we’ve entered into these parallels of not only adhering to sustainability energy emissions, but also looking at compliance as a metric towards investing for health,” as a response to the implementation of an Indoor Air Quality dashboard, and review of mask compliance, and social distancing adherence across the facility.

Cees Van der Spek from EDGE Technologies presented the ‘Developer’s’ perspective, and on EDGE, they have outlined 4 solutions to achieve their new generation of buildings; wellbeing, design, sustainability and technology. ‘There are four major things that cover 90% of how you feel in an office, these are fresh air, daylight, nature and healthy behaviour, and so our proposals to the contractors and the architects focus on these four parts,” Van der Spek said.

EDGE’s portfolio showcases low carbon projects, such as EDGE London Bridge with a target of 500kg CO2 equivalent per metre square from cradle to practical completion. Cees identified technology as an interlinking solution to allow for better understanding and management of data, and that well-being and sustainability are integral to the energy levels of a building and the health of those using it.

Looking forward to the ESG landscape, we are seeing increasing interest in the social component. At IWBI we note, alongside our clients, that health is material to the bottom line. Angela Loder provided an overview on this economic evolution towards health reporting stating “health reporting influences the financial outcomes of the organisations. Research has shown us that the impact of health focussed interventions and employee performance through the built environment has had a 73 percent positive impact on building lease rates, 62 percent positive impact on building value, and a 79 percent positive impact on occupant satisfaction.”

Despite standardized metrics for the environmental component of ESG, the ‘S’ is much more difficult to measure. At IWBI we are seeing massive demand from projects for a comprehensive roadmap to track performance, health and well-being progress over time that follows the diversity, equity and inclusion model. Our response to this was the development of the 12 competencies for human and social capital, an adaptive, benchmarkable and contextual approach to tracking health performance which we look forward to releasing later this year.

For further information on how WELL can steer your organization’s sustainability roadmap, and human and social capital performance in ESG, watch our on-demand IWBI Webcast: Human and Social Capital in your ESG Strategy.

We would like to thank all of our speakers for their contributions to this roundtable, and we encourage our community to get in touch and support research on these topics.