IWBI’s Policy Summit: The Conversations Shaping the Next Chapter of Healthy Buildings
Eight conversations from IWBI’s Healthy Building Policy Summit reveal what’s possible—and what it will take to bring better health to more people.
There’s something powerful about bringing people together who see the same opportunity from very different vantage points. At our 2026 Healthy Building Policy Summit hosted in partnership with Georgetown University, healthy building leaders, researchers, innovators, policymakers and advocates shared successes, confronted barriers and challenged us to think bigger. The opportunity is enormous: make our buildings a stronger foundation for public health. Policy can help turn that ambition into reality.
The conversations connected that vision to the places and people we serve.
Rachel Hodgdon’s Fireside Chat With Joseph Allen examined how we turn scientific knowledge and growing investment into healthier buildings people can count on. READ MORE.
In The Rise of Healthy Cities, experts explored how buildings, public spaces and infrastructure can work together to strengthen communities. READ MORE.
A New Building Imperative connected that work to biosecurity, national preparedness and resilience. READ MORE.
Health First Schools and Colleges confronted the funding and policy gaps keeping students from healthier learning environments. READ MORE.
And Building Better Brains opened an exciting frontier: designing spaces that actively support our ability to think, learn and flourish. READ MORE.
A Special Conversation With ARPA-H’s Deputy Director for Proactive Health looked under the hood of an ambitious effort to make buildings a platform for disease prevention. READ MORE.
In What’s Next in Indoor Air Quality, leaders mapped a future of responsive buildings, stronger standards and verified performance. READ MORE.
And in our closing plenary, Health for ALL, Eric Corey Freed showed us the absurdity in some of our past strategies while suggesting a return to simplicity, asking how about designing buildings for the good they can do for people? READ MORE.
I left inspired by the ingenuity in this community and determined to help it reach further. Explore these conversations, bring their ideas into your work, and join us in advancing the policies, partnerships and investment that can make healthier buildings an everyday expectation.
