Sustainability in the Spotlight: What’s the difference between Fitwel, WELL and RESET?

The social aspects of sustainability are becoming increasingly important in all areas of real estate, and flexible offices are no exception. Covid-19 has increased awareness of indoor air quality and workplace health and wellbeing, with building users demanding healthy spaces.

Landlords and occupiers can demonstrate that their space promotes health, wellbeing and indoor air quality by certifying their spaces against internationally recognised standards.

We take a look at three of the most popular health and wellbeing certifications to explore how they differ.

The Fitwel Standard

The Fitwel standard provides a tailored set of strategies for retail, multifamily residential and commercial properties. The standard does not contain mandatory features, allowing any type of workplace to pursue this standard. It is a good tool to improve occupier engagement and overall user experience. The standard works on a star rating and points system.

The Fitwel scorecard investigates a variety of health behaviours and risks across 12 categories: location, building access, outdoor spaces, stairwells, entrances & ground floor, indoor environment, workspaces & dwellings, water supply, shared spaces, cafeterias & prepared food areas, vending machines & snack bars and emergency preparedness.

The WELL Building Standard

The WELL standard is a performance based system optimised for office, commercial and multifamily residential buildings. It measures features of the built environment that impact human health and wellbeing. The standard is designed around mandatory preconditions which must be met to achieve entry-level certification and enhanced optimisations to reach higher levels of certification.

The WELL Building Standard measures, certifies and monitors features of the built environment that impact human health and wellbeing, through ten ‘concepts’: air, water, nourishment, light, movement, thermal comfort, sound, materials, mind and community.

The RESET Standard for Air Quality

The RESET Air certification is an internationally recognised sensor-based and performance driven certification programme, focusing on indoor air quality and prioritising ongoing results and long-term occupier health. The standard ensures data quality, continuous monitoring and benchmarking through technology. RESET Air is available for commercial interiors and core & shell buildings.

The RESET certification has ‘acceptable’ and ‘high performance’ targets in relation to particulate matter (PM2.5), total volatile organic compounds (TVOC), carbon dioxide, temperature, relative humidity and carbon monoxide (in spaces with combustion).

Which certification should I get?

Occupiers and landlords can apply for any of the standards; however, as RESET Air has stringent ongoing monitoring requirements, occupiers who do not have full control over their space’s air supply may not be able to fulfil all data and monitoring requirements.

As the WELL standard has preconditions, it may be better suited for newer or refurbished buildings which are designed to fulfil modern requirements. The Fitwel standard provides more flexibility as it has no mandatory preconditions.  All provide pathways designed to accommodate most project sizes, sector and budget and their achievement provides a clear signals that health and wellbeing outcomes have been prioritised.

We would recommend getting in touch with our Savills Senior Sustainability Consultant, Maria Garcia to talk through which option is best for you. You can contact Maria on: MGarcia@savills.com