Telling the WELL Core story

Role of owners

Building owners and investors play a pivotal role in advancing human health by designing and operating buildings from a human-first perspective with well-being top of mind. Ensuring key elements such as the building structure, window locations and glazing, building proportions, the heating, cooling and ventilation system, and water quality are designed for health can have a significant impact on the tenants, among all others who experience the building. Earning WELL Core Certification verifies the performance of your building while communicating to current and prospective tenants that you are committed to partnering with them to create a healthy environment for their people. Based on the number of health promoting strategies you achieve, WELL recognizes leadership at Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum certification levels, providing flexibility on how to meet your goals.

WELL Core unlocks tenant potential

WELL Core Certification can be leveraged to attract and retain health focused tenants as it provides a fundamental baseline for existing and future tenants to pursue and achieve WELL Certification for their own spaces. By building upon the attributes of a WELL Certified™ base building, tenants can add wellness-focused strategies that align with the 10 concepts of WELL, promoting movement, encouraging healthy eating and selecting healthy materials for existing and future furnishings and interior finishes. Tenants within WELL Core Certified buildings receive discounted WELL Certification fees, culminating in a head start paired with a financial incentive to pursue their own certification achievements.

Celebrating WELL Core

Once you’ve achieved WELL Core Certification, it’s time to celebrate and promote this exceptional accomplishment with the world. The strategies to communicate your achievement of WELL Core can range from the creation of static resources like lookbooks - as demonstrated below by the The Porter Building, to timely press releases– see EDGE Olympic received WELL Platinum and WELL Certification awarded to Frasers Property’s new Headquarters.

Some WELL Core Certified building owners even create interactive videos and WELL specific Microsites (Universe of WELL-Being by HB Reavis) that live on and continue to provide updates to their evolving pursuit of WELL recertification. While many of these example stories are meaningful after the successful achievement of WELL, there are still plenty of opportunities to communicate your plans to achieve WELL in the pre-construction phase. Vanderbilt University’s School of Nursing developed an interactive diagram to help capture the excitement around designing for health before construction completion.

Once you have achieved WELL Core Certification, hosting physical or virtual tours and using your building as a platform to communicate the value of healthier spaces is sure to generate additional interest in the healthy building movement. Sustainability reports are another avenue to share these accomplishments and renew an organization’s commitment to health on an annual basis. See SL Green, Hines, and Cadillac Fairview’s latest reports that highlight their most valued WELL achievements to the industry.

While self-reported analyses of the benefits of pursuing WELL Certification are a great way to share experiences, participating in third-party case studies is an incredibly valuable way to share your successes with an even larger audience. The World Green Building Council and Urban Land Institute regularly report on the healthy building achievements and act as great platforms to communicate these key achievements and lessons learned. You can download each report and learn more at the following links:

• WGBC Report- Doing Right by Planet and People: The Business Case for Health and Wellbeing in Green Building
• ULI Report- The Business Case for Healthy Buildings: Insights from Early Adopters

If you are interested in sharing your WELL Story and still don’t know where to begin, start by leveraging our marketing guides to demonstrate exactly how WELL Core differentiates your space.

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Global Examples of WELL Core Certified Buildings

North America

CIBC Square: Toronto, Canada

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One of the largest Canadian developments to date has been a joint effort between Ivanhoé Cambridge and Hines: CIBC Square located at 81 Bay Street in Toronto. CIBC Square is on the leading edge of innovation prioritizing human health and focusing on the importance of biophilia in the design of their one acre elevated park that connects the two towers, as well as the thoughtful facade design to promote views for all people inside the buildings.

MNP Tower: Vancouver, CA

Notable projects in Canada include MNP Tower, developed by Oxford Properties, who through their pursuit of WELL activated the fire escape stairs with interesting biophilic art and educational decals to promote movement in a space that is typically avoided in most commercial buildings.

One Vanderbilt: New York, US

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In the United States there are many monumental developments focused on health and well-being. One Vanderbilt, developed by SL Green, has been touted as one of New York City’s most cutting edge office towers. Once construction is complete, it will be the second tallest building in New York City and has already invested millions in public realm improvements for subway infrastructure enabling better commuting options, along with a landscaped plaza promoting a strong connection to nature once people arrive.

Winthrop Tower: Massachusetts, US

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There are a number of examples across the US that are simultaneously pursuing WELL alongside environmental standards such as the Winthrop Tower in Boston targeting WELL Gold Certification, LEED Platinum and Passive House Certification.

Australia

Barangaroo South: New South Wales, AU

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Australia leads the way with a great developer-tenant relationship at Barangaroo in Sydney. Lendlease was able to deliver a WELL Core Platinum base building that inspired the interior pursuit of WELL Platinum Certification to match.

720 Bourke Street: Victoria, AU

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One of the first WELL Core Certified towers in Australia, 720 Bourke, values the holistic approach to integrating wellness with sustainability initiatives. This space had ambitions to reduce its carbon footprint while elevating the human experience of the space by incorporating amenities like living walls and light filled atriums and terraces to promote movement throughout the building and nudge people towards healthier behaviors.

Asia

One Bangkok: Bangkok, Thailand

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One Bangkok epitomizes the principles of human-centered design, creating the perfect playground to explore work - life balance and directly embedding these human centric values for all future building users. These earlier stage renderings are able to generate excitement within the community at large, and, when paired with an announcement or media splash around how the WELL features are guiding the design, construction and future operations of the newer developments, they help to instill confidence that people are instrumental to the design, maintenance and ongoing operations of these spaces.

One Museum Place: Jing An in Shanghai, China

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In Shanghai, the tenant BEE is working alongside Hines on achieving WELL Certification for their office space within One Museum Place. One of the primary drivers towards the pursuit of WELL Certification in China is understanding exactly how to optimize the indoor air quality to combat the ubiquitous pollution issues. One Museum Place is deploying state of the art air filtration systems and air quality sensors to provide data on the quality of air within the building. There have been a number of other WELL projects in China utilizing real time data and sensors that have already demonstrated how access to this information drives an increased participation rate for their space.

Europe

Varso Tower: Warsaw, Poland

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Europe is home to the Varso Tower, one of HB Reavis’ flagship developments in Warsaw. HB Reavis was eager to communicate the fact that their building was on the path towards WELL Certification, making them one of the first to pursue Precertification.

Castellana 81: Madrid, Spain

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Castellana 81 in Spain developed a virtual tour on their website along with a wellness-focused page online to share the specific WELL features they pursued as a way to demonstrate their leadership and provide inspiration for future building owners looking to follow in their footsteps in creating a healthier office environment. Sceneo in France also realized the value in communicating their achievements in video form. This media provides an unparalleled experience to viewers worldwide giving them the opportunity to learn more about what a WELL Certified space embodies and sparking the passion to incorporate those strategies in their own lives in the places and spaces where they spend the most time.

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Supporting the Developer - Tenant Relationship

There are a number of ways to support the market by assisting WELL focused developers and building owners in finding like-minded tenants. We are proud to have a growing list of successful examples of joint certification initiatives to share. In addition to those highlighted in Australia and Asia, many additional projects around the world have had similar experiences, indicating that the desire to create and spend time in healthier spaces is truly universal.

Conclusion

The true beauty of the WELL Building Standard is the passive delivery of preventative healthcare strategies that positively impact humans who interact in WELL Certified spaces.

As a developer or building owner, you have the unique opportunity to fully embrace the holistic mission of leading with prevention. Doing so at scale through WELL Portfolio is the most impactful way to drive a culture of health across all buildings and spaces under your control. To learn more about WELL Portfolio or how others are communicating their accomplishments with WELL, reach out to portfolio@wellcertified.com.