The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) has added a new innovation feature to the WELL Building Standard (WELL) that rewards climate leadership with the goal of accelerating emission reductions in the face of ever-increasing public health impacts of climate change.
Released in the Q3 Addendum, the Innovation Feature on Carbon Disclosure and Reduction encourages organisations to assess and disclose their carbon emissions, set science-based reduction targets and move toward carbon neutrality.
IWBI president and CEO, Rachel Hodgdon, said climate change is the single greatest threat to public health of the 21st century, and organisations need to deploy all the solutions in their collective toolkit to repair the planet.
“This new innovation feature rewards organisations for declaring publicly where they stand on carbon emissions and for making measurable and meaningful progress to reduce them,” Hodgdon said.
This WELL innovation feature focuses on direct climate action by holding organisations accountable to their actual greenhouse gas emissions and follows their commitments with science-based targets toward carbon reduction.
As these goals apply to targets set at a larger, organizational level, the new WELL feature also is designed to support IWBI’s enterprise and portfolio customers working to reduce their overall carbon impact across all aspects of their organization.
The feature awards up to 10 total points for full alignment -- which would fulfill all points in the Innovation concept.
WELL v2 -- the latest version of the WELL Building Standard – has long acknowledged projects for sustainability leadership at a building-scale by rewarding points for projects obtaining certifications by other green building rating systems.
It has also supported individual projects in bolstering their achievement with other features that encourage climate action, from limiting red and processed meats to encouraging cycling to work.
Environmental and social sustainability is foundational to IWBI’s values and align with 16 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with four features directly supporting Goal 13: Climate Action.
Additionally, as part of a commitment to provide environmentally sustainable and healthy housing for all, IWBI partnered with Enterprise Community Partners two years ago to enable affordable housing projects pursuing certification through Enterprise’s Green Communities to simultaneously achieve WELL Certification.
The WELL Building Standard is the world’s leading rating system focused on advancing people-first places for everyone, everywhere.
Developed over 10 years and backed by the latest scientific research, WELL sets pathways for accomplishing health-first factors that support physical and mental well-being across 10 core concepts: air, water, nourishment, light, movement, thermal comfort, sound, materials, mind and community.
Rigorous requirements for performance, design interventions, operational protocols and company-wide practices are verified by a third party. WELL also provides a framework for translating research to design and management practices that prioritize people’s health and well-being.