The WELL Community Standard™ pilot is a global benchmark for communities that aims to protect health and well-being across all aspects of community life.

The WELL Community Standard is a district-scale rating system centered exclusively on promoting human health and well-being. It’s grounded in evidence-based research and was developed in consultation with leading physicians, scientists and public health experts, as well as city planners, engineers and architects. 

The WELL Community Standard provides project teams with the tools they need to incorporate healthy lifestyle behaviors and design strategies to support well-being at a district scale. The pilot sets a new precedent for community planning, building and development. It provides guidance for how communities can use actionable strategies and interventions to protect the health and well-being of residents in the public spaces where they spend their days. 

A WELL community is inclusive, integrated and resilient, and it fosters high levels of social engagement. Resources in a WELL community—natural, human and technological—are used effectively, equally and responsibly to meet the community’s current and future needs and priorities. 

The WELL Community Standard pilot is for any developer, policymaker, municipal leader or community organization that seeks to elevate human health in our communities.

The WELL Community Standard helps project teams prioritize health in community building and design practices while also delivering cutting-edge health and well-being interventions at a district scale to support both planet and people. 

To qualify for WELL Community Standard registration, projects must meet at least two of the following conditions:

• Planned daytime or nighttime population of 500 people or more.

• Planned total floor area of 50,000 m² [538,000 ft²] or more.

• Planned total building count of 10 or more.

• Total land area of two hectares [five acres] or more.  

The WELL Community Standard is designed for integrated, mixed-use developments. Projects must also include at least two of the following:

• Multifamily residential: at least one building with five or more dwelling units.

• Office and/or retail: at least one space, employing a total of at least five people.

• Public use recreation or leisure, accessible from dawn to dusk: of at least 0.4 hectare [1 acre], composed of one or more spaces each at least .02 hectares [.05 acres]. 

The WELL Community Standard was created with flexibility to cover various types of ownership and development, including public, private and public-private developments for both new and existing communities.

The WELL Community Standard pilot focuses on ten concepts to support the development of health-focused, integrated and supported communities.

The WELL Community Standard is made up of ten concepts: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind and Community. Within each concept, there are features. Each of the 110 features addresses specific aspects of the health and well-being of community members associated with each concept. 

Each concept contains one precondition and the remaining features are optimizations. Most features address the community at large – outdoor environmental conditions, the presence of amenities and the geography of the project – while a small number apply to rules within the buildings themselves.

The WELL Community Standard is in its pilot stage, so there remains flexibility in the interpretation of the requirements. Over the course of its existence as a pilot, IWBI will use information and feedback gathered from projects and industry experts to refine and enhance the standard. The certification process is administered by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI). See the WELL Community Certification Guidebook for more details.

Scope and Boundaries

The program was created with the adaptability needed to cover various types of ownership and development. These include public, private and joint public-private developments for both new and existing communities. WELL Community project owners must use their discretion to determine project boundaries. Once selected, the certification requirements must be applied consistently across the premises, including to properties under separate ownership (unless indicated otherwise in the standard).

Scoring

The WELL Community Standard has three levels of certification, each with a minimum point threshold:

• Silver - 50 pts.
• Gold - 60 pts.
• Platinum - 80 pts. 

Projects accumulate points in a number of ways, including: 

• Optimizations (one point each, up to 100)
• Innovations (up to 10 points)
• Achieving healthy building certifications (up to 30 points)
• Achieving green building certifications (up to 10 points, not to exceed 30 points combined from healthy and green certified buildings).

The pathway to certification

There are 4 stages on the path to receiving WELL Community Certification:

Registration

Create an account and register your project using our online project management system. Once you’ve created your account, just hover over the Projects button at the top of the page, select WELL Community, then click the Start a Community Project at the top of your screen. From there, all you have to do is fill in the required information about your project and you’re on your way to certification!

Documentation Review

Submitting documentation is an essential step on the path toward certification. Whether your project is a new construction or an existing community, you will need to compile various types of documentation related to both design and policy that demonstrate your commitment to the principles of the WELL Community Standard. 

WELL Precertification

District-scale projects take place along an extended timeline. Therefore, projects wishing to demonstrate their commitment to health and wellness prior to the completion of construction and documentation review may pursue WELL Precertification. This is an optional interim award that communicates progress toward WELL Certification using intent-stage documentation. The Precertification designation remains active until either the project achieves WELL Certification, or its registration expires after 5 years.

Documentation review

Once your implementation-stage documentation is ready, you will submit your documentation for review by Green Business Certification, Inc. (GBCI), a third-party reviewer that will evaluate your documents to make sure they meet the requirements of the program. The WELL Community Standard does not mandate a specific threshold of construction completion prior to certification. However, your project must meet all eligibility requirements (e.g., minimum size) and the conditions required within all features pursued at the time documentation is submitted for review (e.g., access to a grocery store).

Feature review: Projects must submit documentation in accordance with the type required for each feature (e.g., professional narrative, policy document, letter of assurance).

For some features (for example, Movement Network Planning (MNP)), projects must gather information and make planning decisions based on it. During review of these features, GBCI makes no assessment of the data quality or sufficiency; rather, GBCI evaluates whether or not a project has a plan to consider this data and to take proactive steps and actions based upon it.

Healthy and/or green buildings: At the point of documentation review, all buildings the project intends to use as certified buildings for the purpose of eligibility and point-earning must have a valid certification status. This includes early-stage review or design awards ("precertifications") such as WELL Precertification, LEED precertification or projects enrolled in the WELL Portfolio program but not WELL Certified. All such buildings must be fully certified to achieve WELL Community Standard recertification.

Community narrative: Lastly, projects must submit a community narrative that details the mission and goals of the WELL community. It must note the stakeholders and other key players involved, as well as the expected timelines and schedules for various types of development. The narrative must describe how health and well-being:

• Are given top priority.
• Become integral to infrastructure.
• Become integral to culture and operations in the district.
• Are incentivized through the inclusion of health and wellness certified buildings.
• Are considered inclusive of all potential residents, employees and visitors to the development.

Performance verification

Whether your project is an existing community or is still under construction, you can begin to collect the air and water quality data needed for performance verification. Details on exactly when and how this testing can be done are found in the WELL Community Performance Verification Guidebook. You may engage local, pre-qualified WELL APs to gather the performance data on site or utilize existing data collected at the municipal level through state agencies, universities or other entities when available.

Performance verification is required for the following features:

Air

• AQU Fundamental Air Quality
• LTA Long-Term Air Quality
• LTE Enhanced Long-Term Air Quality
• STA Short-Term Air Quality
• STE Enhanced Short-Term Air Quality

Water

• WQT Drinking Water Quality
• WAD Public Water Additives
• PWT Periodic Water Testing
• WQO High Quality Drinking Water
• WFS Water Feature Sanitation

You may submit performance data for the necessary features in the Air and Water concepts either together with other documentation or at a later point once data is collected. The water quality tests for the features Drinking Water Quality (WQT), Public Water Additives (WAD) and High Quality Drinking Water (WQO) are one-time samples of the current conditions at project completion.

The air quality tests for the features Fundamental Air Quality (AQU), Long-Term Air Quality (LTA), Enhanced Long-Term Air Quality (LTE), Short-Term Air Quality (STA) and Enhanced Short-Term Air Quality (STE) take place over a 12-month period, but this may begin before documentation review and construction completion. Data that is already collected for the community at the municipal level, such as from a public air quality monitoring station, may be used as long as it meets the parameters for performance data collection. GBCI will review the provided performance data and the method of data collection against the feature requirements.

Certification and recertification

After you successfully complete documentation review and performance verification, you’ll be granted WELL Certification. Your certification will remain valid for five years. 

At the time of recertification, you must submit documents and performance verification data showing that your project still meets the requirements of the program. If you’d like to attempt to increase your level of certification at that time, you may also choose to pursue additional optimization features.

Note: If your project is constructed in phases, you may pursue certification individually for each phase, then include additional phases within your project boundary when recertifying.

Through the WELL Community Standard pilot, communities can elevate human health to the forefront of building and design practices to support people and the planet.

Over the last decade, green building rating systems and standards have made significant strides toward the market transformation of the building industry. This has resulted in a rapid expansion of environmentally conscious building and planning practices throughout the world. The WELL Community Standard was created to take this process a step further. We’re transforming the way our communities can promote health and well-being of all while remaining environmentally sustainable. 

To get started with WELL Community Certification, enroll your project and sharing some key details.

The path to WELL Community Certification begins with registration–go to account.wellcertified.com and either sign in to your existing account or create a new account. Then, follow these steps to start your WELL Community project:

1. Hover over Projects at the top of your screen and select WELL Community
2. Click 'Start a Community Project' at the top of the screen.
3. Enter the requested details about your project, then click the Create button at the bottom when you're finished.

Congratulations, you've created your project! At this point, your project can access WELL coaching support from IWBI, who can provide technical support and answer questions about the WELL Certification process. You can also start assembling your team, pay your invoice and sign the Certification Agreement.