Your guide to the Q4 2019 addenda

This past quarter has been a busy and productive time for the IWBI family and we’re excited to share with you the Q4 2019 addenda for the WELL Building Standard (WELL) and the WELL Community Standard. Every year, WELL undergoes four addenda cycles, where we introduce changes that clarify and enhance feature language. We are constantly listening and learning from all of you and do our best to incorporate your feedback and ideas into each addenda.

Eager to get involved? Share your feedback on a specific feature or the standard as a whole with public comment. You can also engage in real-time dialogue with members of the community through the “agree”, “disagree” or “reply” functionality on wellcertified.com. This addenda, we incorporated two suggestions from public comment in the Sound and Nourishment concepts. Public comment will close on Nov. 30, so be sure to submit your comments as soon as possible!

We want to hear from you! Join the conversation

Transitioning WELL D&O to WELL Precertification
Before we dive into an overview of the Q4 addenda, we want to acknowledge a shift in WELL v2 terminology - we’ve decided to revert back to the term “WELL Precertification” for the interim designation that in the WELL v2 pilot was referred to as “WELL D&O”. None of the requirements to achieve this designation have changed, only the terminology itself. We introduced the term WELL D&O in large part because in China (one of our largest markets) the character for precertification looks nearly identical to the character for certification and was causing confusion with a host of stakeholders. However, the feedback we’ve received since the launch of WELL v2 pilot is that the term D&O simply isn’t as powerful as the term precertification for marketing this substantial milestone in the certification process. We recognize that what’s in a name truly matters, especially when it comes to marketing and we want to do everything possible to encourage project teams to celebrate their successes and provide validation that they’re on the right track towards full certification.

To avoid confusion in China, we’ve selected a different Chinese character that loosely translates to “mid-way” certification.

Q4 2019 ADDENDA HIGHLIGHTS
Download all addenda resources in the Q4 addenda toolkit

Amendments
We published 35 amendments to the WELL v2 pilot, three amendments to WELL v1, 11 amendments to the WELL Community Standard and six amendments to the guidebooks.

WELL v2

• Annual testing towards recertification purposes: Project teams can work with a Performance Testing Agent to complete on-site testing and reporting requirements for Feature A01, Feature T01, Feature W01 and Feature W02. While not required, doing so makes results eligible to be used towards recertification efforts. In the notes section of the aforementioned features, we clarified that project teams may average data from different years and test locations. Our goal is to drive the market towards continuous monitoring and reward projects that are collecting quality data.

• N01 - Fruits and Vegetables: We clarified fruit and vegetable requirements based on the type of food services offered by a project. If a project provides mostly packaged food, they must offer at least two varieties of fruits and vegetables. On the contrary, if a project team prepares food on-site, they must provide at least four varieties of fruits and vegetables.

• N02 - Nutritional Transparency: In response to a surge of equivalency proposals, we adjusted the reporting requirements for macronutrient content to include both weight and percent Daily Value (DV).

• Introducing a new beta feature: W09ß: Onsite Non-Potable Water Reuse rewards the safe capture and reuse of non-potable water and prevents human exposure to untreated water. By adding this feature to WELL v2, we hope to reduce the building industry’s water footprint and protect increasingly threatened water sources around the world.

WELL Community Standard

• WAD - Public Water Additives: We updated parts 1, 2 and 3 to clarify that only public water fountains in areas owned, managed or operated by the project owner are subject to feature requirements. We also removed the minimum fluoride threshold (0.7 mg/L) and now, only require that projects don’t exceed a fluoride level of 4 mg/L. This change has already been made in WELL v2 to account for the fact that water fluoride levels are often determined at the municipality level.

• No cost public use spaces: The WELL Community Standard aims to impact individuals not just within the walls of their home or workplace, but throughout the public spaces where they spend their day. Thus, public spaces are a critical element of WELL Community projects. The glossary term “public use” and feature language across several features now highlights public use spaces that are accessible to the community and free of charge (i.e. at no cost). For example, Feature BPK - Bicycle Parking, requires projects to provide public use bike parking at no cost. However, projects can meet the eligibility requirements for public use spaces in a variety of ways, including spaces that have an associated cost to access.

Guidebooks
This quarter, we reduced the number of lighting sampling points for residential projects. Now, WELL Performance Testing Agents may take one sample per room instead of multiple samples based on the room’s size. We also capped on-site testing at three rooms per dwelling unit to reduce and streamline the performance verification process.

Strategies
We published 27 equivalencies in the strategies table and the “strategies” tab of the digital standard this quarter. We did not publish any AAPs this quarter.

WELL AP exam updates
Changes to WELL v1 are incorporated into the WELL AP exam through an annual review and update cycle. This quarter, we updated the WELL AP exam to reflect the Q1 2019 version of the WELL Building Standard v1 and the WELL Certification Guidebook.

Any questions?
Registered projects can reach out for WELL coaching support via the support tab of their WELL digital platform account and all others can contact us here. Thank you for working alongside us to shape the evolution of WELL. Your feedback is essential to our success!

Note: Moving forward, we will no longer host addenda webcasts. We encourage you to explore the Q4 2019 addenda toolkit to stay up to date on all things addenda!