The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) announced that it has crossed the three billion square-foot mark of spaces enrolled in WELL.
In the past year, the building area applying WELL offerings has tripled from one billion square feet to more than three billion, IWBI said, so that today, WELL strategies support the health and well-being of an estimated 13.6 million people in more than 33,000 locations in nearly 100 countries.
?As the world continues to grapple with our current public health crisis, it?s no coincidence we are seeing enormous demand for WELL?s holistic approach to applying the science of how physical and social environments can affect human health, well-being and performance,? said IWBI President and CEO Rachel Hodgdon. ?Organizations around the world are leveraging WELL to implement evidence-based strategies, set human and social capital performance goals, track progress and celebrate impact.?
Since the launch of the WELL Building Standard (WELL) in 2014, more than 2,000 companies, including 20 percent of the Fortune 500, have adopted WELL. Some of these companies include ARM, Brookfield Asset Management, Carrier, Centene, Charter Hall, Citigroup, Cushman & Wakefield, Herman Miller, Honeywell, Investa, JLL, JPMorgan Chase, Lendlease APPF, New York Yankees, Simon Property Group, T-Mobile and Uber Technologies.
?The tailwinds behind WELL are strong and growing exponentially,? added Hodgdon. ?We?re currently enrolling nearly 5.7 million square feet of space every day, and we?re working with organizations and professionals in every industry to help scale up impact so that people-first places are accessible to everyone, everywhere.?
WELL outlines key building-level interventions and organizational strategies across 10 categories: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind and Community.
The WELL Building Standard (WELL) ecosystem comprises WELL Certification, the WELL Health-Safety Rating for Facility Operations and Management, WELL Portfolio and certification under the WELL Community Standard.
While the United States and China continue to lead WELL?s growth, IWBI also highlighted growth in other regions.
More than 25% of all commercial office space in Australia is now engaged in a WELL pathway, due largely to an increase in organizations pursuing the WELL Health-Safety Rating and the WELL Building Standard to support the return of people back to their workplaces. Oceania?s WELL AP community grew by 23 percent in the past year.
Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) now account for 3,000 WELL projects comprising 260 million square feet across 42 countries. The United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany and France are leading regional expansion through the WELL Health-Safety Rating, pursuit of WELL Certification and WELL Portfolio.
Within Asia, India has experienced rapid growth of the WELL Health-Safety Rating in 2021 and is now ranked second globally for total space enrolled in the rating. Thailand and Hong Kong are two fast-growing markets for pursuit of WELL Certification in Southeast Asia, both among the top 10 performing global markets, according to the IWBI.
