The WELL Health-Safety Rated Building Program and Certification

As the world continues to battle COVID-19 and communities strive to get back to business, it is more important than ever to raise confidence in the safety of buildings and shared spaces.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating, an evidence-based third-party designation was created to verify that a building or space has taken the necessary steps to prioritize the health and safety of their staff, visitors, and other stakeholders—ensuring that occupants and visitors entering a certified building—feel more confident in their decision to go inside.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating brings together building expertise and nearly a decade of health science to promote indoor safety, creating an efficient and cost-effective opportunity to guide, validate, recognize, and scale efforts to manage critical health and safety issues in shared spaces.

The WELL Health-Safety Rating examines 22 features across five core areas – Cleaning and Sanitization Procedures, Emergency Preparedness Programs, Health Service Resources, Air and Water Quality Management, and Stakeholder Engagement and Communication – and requires a minimum of 15 criteria be met in order to achieve the rating and be awarded the WELL Health-Safety seal.

As such, the seal is a symbol of trust and confidence that is backed by science, structure and, most importantly, third-party verification. IWBI has seen thousands of buildings enroll in the program since its launch in July 2020 and expects significant global adoption to continue in 2021 and beyond.

“While the WELL Health-Safety Rating was a response to this moment in time, it was developed to address broader health and safety-related issues well into the future,” said Rachel Hodgdon, President and CEO of the International WELL Building Institute. “We collaborated with our global community to create something that’s flexible for all building types and organizational priorities.

This consistency across market sectors means people will see the seal at their favorite restaurants, stadiums and hotels, and at their office, childcare center or college campus and know it stands for the same thing in every location, that science-based strategies have been implemented and safety has been prioritized.”

The WELL Health-Safety Rating was developed in response to market demand and informed by IWBI’s Task Force on COVID-19, which included nearly 600 public health experts, virologists, government officials, academics, business leaders, architects, designers, building scientists and real estate professionals.

More than 1.5 billion square feet of space are enrolled in WELL offerings. To date, Yankee Stadium, the Empire State Building, JPMorgan Chase, Rocket Mortgage Field House, Amalie Arena, Spectrum Center, Simon Property Group, BB&T Center, Aimbridge Hospitality and AT&T Stadium, among others, have achieved the WELL Health-Safety Rating.

For more information about the campaign, please visit www.WellHealthSafety.com or contact Corey Lee Wilson at clwenterprises@att.net.

The “Look for the WELL Health-Safety Seal Public Awareness Campaign Launches” report from Business Wire, January 24, 2021, was used for this article.