WELL Certification is a roadmap for organizations looking to advance human health and well-being in a single asset or location.

The WELL Building Standard (WELL) is a roadmap for creating and certifying spaces that advance human health and well-being. Developed over 10 years and backed by the latest scientific research, WELL sets pathways for accomplishing health-first factors that help every one of us to do our best work and be our best selves by supporting our physical and mental health. Rigorous performance standards for design interventions, operational protocols and company-wide practices are verified by a third party. WELL works at any scale, from a single interior space to an entire organization.

WELL Certification is ideal for organizations implementing WELL within a single building or asset. The program helps organizations monitor ongoing building performance and collect employee feedback, enabling them to take a data-driven approach to their health and well-being efforts. Organizations can leverage quantifiable metrics from WELL Certification to advance Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting efforts.

Projects are required to pursue a certain subset of features or strategies within the 10 WELL concepts, including Air, Water, Thermal Comfort, Light, Movement, Nourishment, Sound, Mind, Community and Materials. In order to demonstrate compliance with program requirements, projects must submit documentation, which is evaluated and tested by a third party. Projects earn points toward their WELL Certification goal with every optimization feature they achieve. Upon achievement, projects receive a plaque indicative of one of four levels of certification based on the total number of points earned.

• WELL Bronze Certification: 40 points; no minimum points per concept

• WELL Silver Certification: 50 points; minimum 1 point per concept

• WELL Gold Certification: 60 points; minimum 2 points per concept

• WELL Platinum Certification: 80 points; minimum 3 points per concept

Don't just take our word for it. Explore our WELL project series to learn about the journey to WELL Certification and the impact it can have on your employees, customers and community. You can also Explore the WELL Health-Safety Rating, the WELL Performance Rating and the WELL Equity Rating, or learn more about applying WELL at scale across your organization with the comparison chart below.

Simply put, WELL Certification is for everyone, everywhere.

WELL Certification is accessible and applicable to every space type in any location. Some popular sectors include:

• Office
• Residential
• Retail
• Education
• Industrial
• Hospitality

WELL is equitable. It benefits all types of people, especially those who need it the most. With reduced pricing for emerging markets and sectors, we are committed to making WELL work for everyone. See if you qualify.

WELL is global. With a pathway for global projects to adhere to requirements that are relevant to their country or region, WELL is accessible in countries all around the world.

WELL is for new and existing buildings. Both existing buildings and new construction projects can achieve WELL Certification. Extensive renovation or construction may not be required for existing locations to accrue the necessary number of points to achieve certification.

WELL Certification is a measurement of the cumulative health and well-being strategies that a project has implemented from the WELL Building Standard.

Understanding the standard

With over 120 features across 10 concepts, WELL is a roadmap for improving the quality of our air, water and light with inspired design decisions that not only keep us connected but facilitate a good night's sleep, support our mental health and help us do our best work everyday.

The 10 WELL concepts address the following themes: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind and Community.

Each WELL concept includes features that address design, culture, operational policies and maintenance protocols. When implemented, these specific changes can help any building or organization better serve the health of its customers, employees and visitors. Each feature contains one or more parts that include specific requirements, standards or thresholds.

There are two types of features: preconditions and optimizations. Preconditions are mandatory requirements that are considered to be fundamental to a WELL Certified space. Preconditions do not award points upon achievement. Projects can also earn points through optional features, known as optimizations. Each project can select which optimizations to pursue and which parts to focus on within each optimization.

The journey to certification

Make a plan

Upon enrollment, projects will receive access to our secure, cloud-based project management tool and dedicated WELL coaching support team. Our digital, dynamic scorecard allows projects to track progress and benchmark their long-term efforts. Projects pursuing WELL Certification can earn points based on performance outcomes for various policy, design and operational strategies and can achieve one of four certification levels: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum.

When developing a scorecard, it is important to track progress against the requirements of a target certification level.

Document and track

Every project is required to submit documentation of their efforts, which is evaluated by a third-party.  Documents are submitted directly within the project workspace and are sent to a third party for review. There are two rounds of documentation review: preliminary and final. If documentation is not approved during preliminary review, the reviewer will identify areas that require adjustment. Projects are then asked to address the feedback and resubmit for final review. 

Verify and validate

Since WELL is a performance-based system, every WELL project must be verified through on-site testing. On-site measurements are taken for various air and water quality parameters, as well as sound and light levels. It’s a distinct process from traditional building commissioning and assures that the space performs as intended, according to WELL requirements.

Performance verification is completed by an authorized WELL Performance Testing Agent. This professional will usually spend one to three days in the building to validate the project's documentation and complete a series of performance tests, spot-checks and measurements covering all WELL concepts. Testing is completed according to IWBI's sampling protocols available in the WELL Performance Verification Guidebook.

Celebrate and communicate

Upon achievement, projects will receive access to marketing and PR materials to communicate their efforts. The hallmark of WELL Certification is the physical onsite plaque, which can be ordered immediately upon achievement.

Recertification 

WELL Certification requires projects to monitor real-time building performance through the collection of ongoing performance data. Every three years, WELL Certified projects must undergo recertification. The verification process for recertification is similar to certification, including documentation submission and performance verification for certain features. 

WELL Certification is an investment in your most valuable asset - your people.

WELL will help any organization: 

• Prioritize the health and well-being of employees
• Align real estate, operations, human resources and the C-suite under a shared vision for health
• Enhance brand equity through market leadership
• Validate health and well-being commitments through rigorous third-party review and onsite testing
• Create a baseline for ESG reporting and benchmarking

Discover why WELL is the leading global framework for scaling health across your organization.

Rest easy knowing your efforts have been third-party validated

Every WELL Certified space has undergone comprehensive third-party review. This means an organization cannot just say they did something - they have to show proof of their efforts and meet onsite testing standards. This additional verification helps people feel safer and more confident that evidence-based strategies are not only in place, but are monitored on an ongoing basis.

Lead with science

Rome wasn’t built in a day and the WELL movement didn’t happen overnight. We’ve spent years working to advance human health and well-being through science. We’ve channeled all that we have learned into an adaptable and equitable rating system, which continues to be anchored by the latest scientific research and industry best practices. We’ve done the work to compile the research, so organizations can focus on what matters most - their people. 

Health is the second wave of sustainability

To recognize the complementary nature between human health and environmental sustainability, we've developed crosswalks that align WELL Certification with other green building rating systems including BREEAM, Green Star, LEED, NABERS, and RESET. Crosswalks make it easy to integrate WELL Certification into existing sustainability efforts.

Your bottom line will notice the difference

Organizations that invest in creating a culture of health and resilience are better positioned to handle unexpected challenges and global events. The investment community is increasingly incorporating new data and non-traditional financial indicators—like ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) factors—into their analyses to gain an understanding of a company’s source of risk and return. 

As a result, human health is gaining recognition as being material to a business’ bottom line. WELL Certification provides the detailed metrics and measurements needed to confidently report on ESG factors, giving organizations a competitive advantage with investors and stakeholders.

Getting started with WELL Certification starts with enrolling your property and sharing some key details to inform your project’s unique journey.

Log in

First things first — before you can officially enroll your project for WELL Certification, you must create an account on wellcertified.com. It’s easy:

1. Navigate to the Account Login page

2. Click Create an Account and share your information, or sign up with your Facebook, Google or LinkedIn account to save time.

Start a project

Once your account is created, begin the enrollment process by selecting Projects > WELL Certification from the navigation menu at the top of your screen, then select Start a v2 project from the top.

Tell us about your location

Start by sharing the following key information about your project’s location:

3. Give your location a name or nickname. Location names may not include special characters other than _ . - @
4. Provide the location address
5. Provide the size of the project boundary (i.e., the total size of your project as defined by project size in the WELL Program Guidebook).
6. Provide the project location’s space type(s).
7. Choose between WELL Certification or WELL Core Certification.
8. Access your project dashboard

Once your project is created in your WELL account, you can access it at any time in your Projects list. Your next step will either be to complete the enrollment or to build a sample scorecard.

• Make it official! Complete the enrollment process to access our technical support team, unlock promotional benefits and extra project tools. Proceed to the Enroll tab of your project to finish the remaining steps.

or

• Get a sneak peek! Build a personalized scorecard to preview what your WELL journey will entail before completing your enrollment.  To get a good sense of what else is possible with WELL Certification, we encourage you to browse the success stories and other tools curated in the project dashboard. You’ll explore projects who have passed through their certification journey and learn valuable tips along the way.

Tell us about your organization

To continue enrolling your project in WELL Certification, we need to know more about your organization. In this section, you’ll share some key details that will help inform the process, including:

• Organization name
• Owner name
• Billing details
• Privacy settings

Submit payment

To complete your enrollment, pay the associated WELL Certification fees. You may pay with credit card, wire transfer by mailing in a check. Select the option that’s most appropriate for your project.

Sign and upload

Lastly, you must sign the WELL Certification agreement with Docusign and upload a copy. Once your payment clears and your agreement has been returned, your project is officially enrolled in WELL Certification! Congratulations!

Additional things to know 

After you’ve completed the enrollment process, we encourage you to explore our library of helpful resources, guidebooks and articles to better understand your road to WELL Certification.