With the launch of the WELL Community Standard™ pilot, IWBI is ushering in a new era neighborhoods, districts and other communities that have human health and well-being built into their DNA. To learn more about the WELL Community Standard, check out the video below or keep reading!
Communities as vehicles of global public health
Over the last decade, green building rating systems and standards have made significant strides toward the market transformation of the building industry, resulting in a rapid expansion of environmentally conscious building and planning practices throughout the world. Now, through the WELL Community Standard, IWBI is moving human health to the forefront of community building and design practices and delivering cutting-edge health and well-being interventions at the district scale that support both planet and people.
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 days. A WELL community functions to protect health and well-being across all aspects and areas of community life. The vision for a WELL community is inclusive, integrated and resilient, with a strong community identity fostering high levels of social interaction and engagement. Resources in a WELL community–natural, human and technological–are used effectively, equitably and responsibly to meet the community’s current and future needs and priorities.
The WELL Community Standard: At a glance
The WELL Community Standard is made up of 110 features within 10 concepts: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind and Community.
There is one precondition in each concept, while 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–and a small number apply rules within the buildings themselves.
Scope and boundaries
The program is created with flexibility and adaptability to cover various types of ownership and development, including public, private and joint public-private developments, and for both new and existing communities. Project owners may use their discretion to determine project boundaries; however, once selected, the certification requirements must be applied consistently across the premises, including to properties under separate ownership (unless indicated otherwise in the standard).
Some features may mandate design or rules in areas that are outside the project’s control. We recognize that large-scale developments require the collaboration of many partners, and in some cases, projects may not be able to make changes to certain aspects of the public realm. In these cases, projects may apply for exemptions to certain parts of features by documenting how existing regulations or land asset ownership prevents completion of those features.
After assessing the feasibility of the rating and officially registering, projects will customize and ultimately lock in their checklists to determine which features the project is pursuing for certification.
Scoring
The WELL Community Standard has three levels of certification, each with a minimum point threshold: 50 for Silver, 60 for Gold and 80 for Platinum. Projects accumulate points through optimizations (one point each, up to 100); innovations (up to 10 points); achieving healthy building certifications (up to 30 points); and achieving green building certifications (up to 10 points, not to exceed 30 points combined from healthy and green certified buildings).
WELL communities: The buildings within
To ensure that all parts of the community are addressed as spaces that hold the potential to deliver health and well-being benefits, the WELL Community Standard requires some buildings within the project’s boundaries to be certified under a qualifying health and well-being building standard, and provides projects the opportunity to earn additional points for going above the minimum.
All projects must contain at least one health and well-being certified building. For new developments, health and well-being certified buildings must represent at least 15% of total building count or of total gross building area (to project’s benefit) that is owned, operated or managed by the project owner. When calculating this requirement, round up. For example, a new community project with 21 buildings in total would require that at least four of those buildings be certified under an approved health and wellness program. (21 buildings x 15% = 3.15 buildings, which must be rounded up to 4 buildings). Existing communities pursuing WELL Community Certification are not held to this requirement.
Because planetary health and human health are inextricably connected, WELL standards also aim to be interoperable and synergistic with green rating systems. Thus, projects with buildings certified under a qualifying green rating system also can earn up to 10 points, with the combined green and healthy certified buildings earning up to 30 points.
Health and well-being certification systems must be available online at no cost, demonstrate a transparent development process, include post-occupancy or post-construction evaluation of on-site indoor environmental quality (IEQ) conditions, and involve project review by independent, third-party certifying bodies. Green building certifications must be available online at no cost and demonstrate a transparent development process.
You can find approved certifications on the preapproved programs page. Project teams or standard bodies may suggest additional options for IWBI to evaluate, and those options will be added when approved.
Certifying your WELL community
Once the project team finalizes its designs and operations, they submit documentation for the features they’re pursuing. Upon successful review by GBCI, the project is awarded “Precertified” designation. Once the project is built and it passes performance verification measurements for air and water quality, it achieves WELL Community Certification, which is valid for five years. Projects that are built in stages may include additional phases at recertification to expand the project boundary.
Step 1: Project registration
Projects register for the WELL Community Standard through WELL Online.
Step 2: Documentation verification
Projects submit annotated documents for review of design- and policy-based features. Upon successful evaluation by GBCI, projects are awarded the “Precertified” designation. This may take place prior to the completion (or commencement) of construction.
Step 3: Certification
After construction, the project team must attest that all documentation submitted is currently valid, or make any necessary updates to the documentation. Projects undertake performance verification for the necessary features in the Air and Water concepts, and submit these measurements to GBCI. Projects may gather the performance data or, when available, utilize existing data collected at the municipal level through state agencies, universities or other entities. Upon successful evaluation of this data, projects are awarded WELL Community Certification.
Step 4: Recertification
WELL Community Certification is valid for five years. If the project is constructed in phases, the owner may choose to pursue certification for a single phase. The project may then include additional phases to also be evaluated at the time of recertification under a single expanded boundary.
Ongoing data reporting
- For features PWT, WFS, and POC you must submit annual reporting data to IWBI.
- For features AQU, LTA, LTE, STA, STE, WQT, WAD, WQO, you must begin collecting Performance Review data within the 12 months leading to recertification.
Questions? Please reach out to us at wellcommunity@wellcertified.com, and a member of our team will follow up with you.