New initiatives for the International WELL Building Institute

The CEO and chairman of the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), Rick Fedrizzi, has announced a raft of updates that will support Australian building owners looking to boost the sustainability of their assets while supporting the health of building occupants.

IWBI is the developer of the WELL Building Standard (WELL) — an evidence-based system for measuring, certifying and monitoring the performance of a building’s features that focuses primarily on the health and wellbeing of occupants. This institute this week awarded its first ever Australian certification to the headquarters of real estate group Mirvac, located at Sydney’s EY Centre.

WELL certification is secured by achieving credits across seven categories including air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind. The Mirvac building received GOLD certification thanks to features such as access to natural light, air quality monitoring, an online wellness library and more.

Mirvac’s headquarters at EY Centre, 200 George St.

Speaking at Green Cities earlier this week, Fedrizzi said the WELL Building Standard has “given us a framework for focusing on the building enhancements that can have direct positive impact on human health”.

Fedrizzi continued to say that IWBI’s partnerships with leaders in the healthy buildings movement have helped identify “a number of things that enhance the WELL experience”. These include a new strategy which will allow any building type to use the institute’s Alternative Adherence Path process to account for the variables needed for that specific building type.

“We’re shifting from WELL for healthy buildings to WELL for ‘your’ healthy building and creating a framework that will make implementing WELL easier,” he said.

The CEO of the Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), Romilly Madew, said the two organisations have “made a lot of headway in advancing our joint goals” since they announced their partnership in March last year. They have also “identified several pathways to add more value to industry by reducing the time and cost of certification and harmonising Green Star and WELL”, she added.

Rick Fedrizzi and Romilly Madew.

Education and training in Australia will be delivered by both GBCA and IWBI in partnership. The GBCA will also work with IWBI on the product development of other WELL standards, including the WELL Community Standard.

“The GBCA is renowned globally for its achievements with the Green Star – Communities rating tool, and the team and Australian industry’s insights will be invaluable as we work together on the WELL Community Standard,” said Fedrizzi.

“Partnerships are a key pillar of our strategic plan,” added Madew, stating that working with like-minded organisations will help “our industry become a world leader in healthy buildings in much the same way it already leads the world in sustainable buildings”.

Top image caption: Rick Fedrizzi with Mirvac CEO Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz.