IWBI and RICS Announce Collaboration To Integrate Health and Well-Being Into Built Environment Sector
LONDON, October 17, 2023 /3BL/ - The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), the global authority for driving market transformation through healthy buildings, organisations and communities, and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), a leading representative organisation of the built and natural environment sectors in the UK and globally, today announced a strategic collaboration to raise awareness and encourage adoption of strategies that advance health and well-being in buildings and organisations globally.
IWBI and RICS will jointly engage their members and broader networks in opportunities to support occupant health and well-being through IWBI’s WELL Building Standard (WELL) and RICS’ International Building Operating Standard (IBOS). The two organisations will promote thought leadership around health and well-being in properties, and will work to advance benchmarking, regulatory frameworks and standards, with an emphasis on the built environment sector in Europe.
“At IWBI, we embrace the opportunity to collaborate with RICS and its vast professional network as a way to expand our response to the global demand for healthier places and healthier organisations,” said IWBI President and CEO Rachel Hodgdon. “We look forward to continuing our work to drive market transformation together, helping professionals leverage our comprehensive suite of tools and cultivate a culture of health across the industry.”
“We are proud to expand our existing relationship with RICS, and to pursue alignments between the WELL Standard and IBOS,” said Ann Marie Aguilar, Senior Vice President, EMEA, IWBI. “Our joint efforts will help to highlight the rising importance of health and well-being in buildings, organisations and communities, and how strategies to integrate health into the valuation process can improve ESG performance.”
The collaboration builds on earlier efforts between IWBI and RICS to highlight the benefits of prioritising people’s health and well-being, through a new white paper titled “The design, delivery and management of healthy buildings,” as well as events and webcasts.
“Professionals are at the heart of RICS and what we do. As the way we live evolves and as the role of the built environment is quickly changing, there is a need for a people-centric approach to how spaces are managed,” said Paul Bagust, Head of RICS’ Property Practice. “Through this collaboration with IWBI, we are eager to support the industry by providing clarity in the ways we can use data to measure and benchmark buildings, and to deliver positive outcomes across social and environmental factors.”
WELL, the world’s leading roadmap for creating and certifying spaces that advance health and well-being, has been adopted by nearly 44,000 projects encompassing 4.85 billion square feet of real estate across 127 countries. The WELL ecosystem is grounded in the WELL Standard, a library of holistic evidence-based building and organisational strategies – organised into 10 impact categories – that can improve the health and well-being of people. WELL Certification is the highest pinnacle of achievement of strategies across all 10 concepts: Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind and Community.
Certification is available through the WELL Building Standard and WELL Community Standard pilot, along with ratings that are targeted subsets of strategies from the WELL Standard, and which focus on thematic, goal-focused achievements that demonstrate an organisation’s commitment to health and well-being.
As a globally recognised professional body, RICS promotes and enforces the highest professional standards in the development and management of land, real estate, construction and infrastructure. Representing more than 134,000 professionals working in the built environment industry globally, and with offices in every significant financial market, RICS is ideally placed to influence policy and embed its standards within local marketplaces in order to protect consumers and businesses.
IBOS is a data-based approach that supports the measurement and management of buildings for strategic decision-making. Developed alongside the market, IBOS reaches beyond traditional ways of assessing building performance to add another dimension – user experience - and provides a consistent way to benchmark across a number of properties. IBOS revolves around five key pillars: compliance, economics, functionality, sustainability and performance.
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About the International WELL Building Institute
The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) is a public benefit corporation and the world’s leading organisation focused on deploying people-first places to advance a global culture of health. IWBI mobilises its community through the administration of the WELL Building Standard (WELL Standard) and WELL ratings and certifications, management of the WELL AP credential, the pursuit of applicable research, the development of educational resources and advocacy for policies that promote health and well-being everywhere. More information on WELL can be found here.
International WELL Building Institute, IWBI, the WELL Building Standard, WELL v2, WELL Certified, WELL AP, WELL Portfolio, WELL Score, The WELL Conference, We Are WELL, the WELL Community Standard, WELL Health-Safety Rating, WELL Health-Safety Rated, WELL Equity, WELL Performance Rated, WELL Performance Rating, Works with WELL, WELL and others, and their related logos are trademarks or certification marks of International WELL Building Institute pbc in the United States and other countries.
About RICS
We are RICS. Everything we do is designed to effect positive change in the built and natural environments. Through our respected global standards, leading professional progression and our trusted data and insight, we promote and enforce the highest professional standards in the development and management of land, real estate, construction and infrastructure.
Our work with others provides a foundation for confident markets, pioneers better places to live and work and is a force for positive social impact.
Media Contacts:
RICS
press@rics.org
