WELL Tip: Key stakeholders to include on your WELL project team

A successful WELL Certification journey involves collaboration amongst many stakeholders, from internal representatives to contracted consultants. The members of your project team will vary based on your unique project context, including the industry sector, the WELL Certification pathway being pursued, the phase in building design and the project’s wellness goals.

The purpose of this article is to outline the stakeholders commonly involved in the WELL Certification journey; we recommend using it as a framework to customize based on your project’s needs.

All WELL project teams should include the following key team members, which are described in greater detail below.

Key WELL team members

• Project administrator/WELL consultant
• Project owner
• Mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) engineer
• Architect
• Contractor
• Facilities manager and/or Operations team
• WELL Accredited Professional (WELL AP)
• WELL coaching contact support
• WELL Reviewer
• WELL Performance Testing Agent

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• Project administrator
  • WELL project administrators act as project managers and oversee the WELL process. The project administrator coordinates communication amongst the team and serves as the primary point of contact on the project. This individual may reach out for WELL coaching support and is copied on all correspondence with IWBI and GBCI.
  • The project administrator is often a WELL AP, a WELL consultant, the owner (see below), or another designated representative of the project team. This individual is ultimately responsible for the overall quality of the documents submitted and is expected to complete a thorough quality control check of all documentation and forms prior to submission for review. This individual will also be the recipient of a comprehensive WELL report following documentation review and performance verification, as well as the WELL award package.

• Project owner
  • Owners are responsible for authorizing registration of the project, signing legal documents and validating various documents used to demonstrate that WELL feature requirements are satisfied. An owner can be an individual property owner or a representative who is delegated responsibility by an entity that owns the property. Owners have the authority to hold and control project-relevant property and to authorize decisions pertaining to that property. In circumstances where multiple owners hold rights over a property, a single owner must be identified as the authorized decision-maker for purposes of WELL.

• Practitioners & signatories
  • Due to the holistic nature of WELL, many features will require the expertise of various professionals overseeing the relevant aspect of design, construction or operations. Therefore, architects, contractors and MEP engineers are required to provide specific declarations and/or calculations pertaining to the project.
  • Where specific expertise is required for implementing WELL criteria, the feature verification method will require a Letter of Assurance (LoA) from an architect, contractor or MEP. While project teams may create their own LoAs, IWBI has created template LoAs that may be signed and submitted by the appropriate professional in order to comply with relevant features. For WELL v1 projects, the LoA templates are available in the Resource Library. For WELL v2 projects, these templates can be downloaded directly from each feature page in the WELL v2 digital standard, as applicable. For example, the image below shows where to download MEP and Owner LoAs for WELL v2 Part 4 of Feature A01: Fundamental Air Quality.

• WELL AP
  • The WELL AP credential recognizes building industry professionals who are knowledgeable of the conceptual and applied frameworks of WELL and are experienced in its application on registered and certified WELL projects. WELL APs can help guide projects to successful certification awards. Project teams are not required to include a WELL AP but having a WELL AP as part of a project team will help to address all necessary aspects of WELL and qualifies projects for achievement of a pre-approved innovation feature in WELL. Thus, there is significant value in having one or multiple WELL APs working on the WELL project team.

• Facilities manager and/or Operations team
  • The facilities management team will be responsible for implementing many of the ongoing cleaning, maintenance and operations criteria associated with WELL. Thus, it is best practice to include these stakeholders early in the WELL process so that they can analyze the building’s existing operations and incorporate any WELL requirements into the protocol and training, if necessary. These team members should be well oriented to the WELL requirements so that they may uphold WELL-compliant criteria and help track progress towards recertification.

• WELL coaching support
  • Upon official registration for WELL Certification, all projects gain access to WELL coaching support, which includes a suite of resources, tools and webcasts to guide projects through the certification process, along with the ability to ask questions or share challenges with our global WELL coaching team in the support tab in WELL Online. The WELL coaching team does not play a role in approving submissions from projects or certification rulings, as these activities are strictly managed by the Green Business Certification Inc.

• WELL Reviewer
  • After a project submits their WELL documentation, GBCI will assign a WELL Reviewer to the project. The WELL Reviewer is the third-party individual responsible for reviewing a project’s documentation and performance testing results for compliance with WELL requirements.

• WELL Performance Testing Agent
  • WELL Performance Testing Agents conduct performance tests on-site, send samples to labs for testing and submit results for performance review by the WELL Reviewer. For WELL v1 projects, GBCI is the sole provider of on-site performance testing services. For WELL v2 projects, these performance tests for various air quality, water quality, lighting and acoustic parameters may be carried out by the Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) or a WELL Performance Testing Organization that employs GBCI-trained WELL Performance Testing Agents. WELL project teams may contract services from any of the approved WELL Performance Testing Agents on our website.

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Customize according to your WELL project

Though the following team members are not required to obtain WELL Certification, they provide invaluable experience and expertise that will benefit your project. Based on the WELL features you plan to pursue, we highly recommend considering inviting the following professionals to join your team.

Additional team members

• Lighting consultant
• Acoustical consultant
• Occupants
  • Including occupants in early WELL discussions, such as the stakeholder charrette required for WELL v1 Feature 85: Integrative Design or WELL v2 Feature C02: Integrative Design, can prove incredibly valuable in aligning project goals and plans with occupant needs and expectations. Based on your project function, occupants may include employees, building management staff, residents, students, teachers or athletes.
• Human resources representative or workplace wellness staff
  • If applicable to your project, these representatives provide invaluable insight into an organization’s current health policies and mission. Thus, they may be able to conduct a WELL ‘gap analysis’ based on the current policies, as well as serve as ‘WELL champions’ to promote the wellness offerings to occupants once WELL Certification is achieved.
• Approved third party survey provider
  • For more information, read Why should I use a third-party survey provider for my WELL project?.
• Food vendor representative
  • If food or beverages are provided on a daily basis in the project, the food service provider will need to incorporate the WELL nourishment criteria into their operations, policies and offerings.

The above are suggestions of team members that can help ensure a successful WELL Certification journey. We welcome you to invite any additional stakeholders based on your project needs. We also recommend adding all team members to the WELL Online portal to grant them access to the following resources.

• The project lobby (for WELL v2 projects) serves as a landing page in the WELL Online portal, which is specifically designed to link teams to key resources that are most helpful based on the project’s stage in the certification process.
• The digital scorecard includes many interactive tools for project management and communication. Any team member can add notes within each feature part, track progress towards implementation, reference alternative strategies, and directly upload documentation.
• The profile tab includes prompts to help the team collaborate on important wellness goals and milestones. Building this dialogue overtime best prepares that project for marketing and sharing their WELL story once the project is certified.
• The support tab allows the WELL project administrator to communicate with the WELL coaching team when in need of technical support. A record of communication is tracked in this tab for any team member to reference.

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Now that you know who to scout for your roster, start your project and hit the ground running!