The healthy building difference

We get a lot of questions like, “Why certify?” When it comes to overcoming performance gaps and moving beyond intention toward demonstrated performance, we believe that onsite performance verification and third-party certification is the best way to ensure that a building performs the way it was intended. What’s unique and valuable about WELL Certified spaces is that they’re independently tested to ensure that the buildings are performing as designed, and that they’re actually delivering in practice the best possible health benefits to the people using them every day. You can’t monitor and improve what you don’t measure.

Wellness initiatives are a great first step. But until you commit to the path to earn this highly rigorous achievement, IWBI does not recognize “WELL-ready” and “WELL-enabled” as official designations, and use of these terms is not permitted.

For a building owner wishing to demonstrate they have implemented and verified performance for health, to the benefit of all future tenants, WELL Core Certification is the route we offer. View additional details here, including the benefits, discounts and other efficiencies passed along to tenants within WELL Core Certified and WELL Core & Shell Certified buildings.

For a project wishing to add an earlier, interim and official IWBI designation to communicate their project’s progress toward WELL Certification after certain initial requirements are met, we offer WELL Precertification as an interim designation. WELL Precertification can only be used while a project is actively pursuing WELL Certification, and cannot be used by a project that fails to achieve WELL Certification.

For a project owner wishing to show alignment with IWBI and its mission, we welcome you to review IWBI membership options. For companies looking to demonstrate that their product aligns to specific strategies in WELL, we invite you to consider the Works with WELL licensing program.

Additional guidance regarding use of “WELL-ready” and similar language is included in IWBI’s Marketing & PR Guidelines for WELL Projects.

Projects currently registered for WELL v1 or the WELL v2 pilot may upgrade to WELL v2 at no additional cost, up until the point of submission for documentation review. The project would receive WELL v2 pricing for subsequent invoices; registration fees already paid under WELL v1 or the WELL v2 pilot would not be altered or refunded.

If your project is in the documentation review phase, it may still be possible to utilize the new version of WELL. We are happy to help facilitate a change if it helps the project team achieve their certification goals, but note that there may be additional fees to review documentation or conduct additional on-site testing.

A project can stay within the WELL v1 or WELL v2 pilot framework and, for certain features that are similar across the systems, utilize feature language in WELL v2 to comply. The decision to use WELL v2 feature language instead of WELL v1 or WELL v2 pilot feature language must be made prior to submission for documentation review. Have questions? Registered projects can reach out for WELL coaching support via the support tab of their WELL digital platform account and all others can reach out via the contact us page.

With the graduation of WELL v2 from pilot, we want to give you advanced notice that we will be closing registrations for new WELL v1 and WELL v2 pilot projects on December 31, 2020. Please note, the WELL AP exam will continue to be based on the WELL Building Standard v1 until the end of 2021.

Since the launch of the WELL v2 pilot in 2018, we’ve worked tirelessly to incorporate feedback from thousands of members of our global community. During the two-year pilot phase, WELL v2 underwent improvement and refinement through a rigorous process, including a six-month public comment period and final stakeholder review, garnering hundreds of market insights across two phases. Throughout the pilot, we published quarterly addenda to clarify and streamline implementation for projects around the world. In addition, the IWBI Task Force on COVID-19, comprised of 16 co-chairs and nearly 600 leaders and experts from 30 countries, collectively crowdsourced hundreds of comments during a 40-day sprint to assess how WELL v2 could be further strengthened to better support prevention and preparedness, resiliency and recovery.

The evolution of WELL v2 was supported by more than 150 WELL concept advisors. Concept advisors have expertise in one or more of the ten WELL concepts and provide input on solutions to health and wellness concerns, best practices for localization, case studies to fill research gaps and innovative topic areas. Their expertise and input supported IWBI’s Standard Development team, comprised of experts in each of the ten WELL concepts, at every turn, and helped take WELL to new heights.

The WELL Building Standard version 2 (WELL v2) is a vehicle for buildings and organizations to deliver more thoughtful and intentional spaces that enhance human health and well-being. WELL v2 includes a set of strategies—backed by the latest scientific research—that aim to enhance human health through design interventions, operational protocols and policies and a commitment to fostering a culture of health and wellness. Built upon the pioneering foundation of the first version of the WELL Building Standard (WELL v1), WELL v2 draws expertise from a diverse community of WELL users, practitioners, public health professionals and building scientists around the world.