WELL
gets better - WELL v2

About 600 buildings in 31 countries of the world are already certified according to the standard, and this number continues to grow. However, in Russia there are no buildings built according to the WELL standard yet. This is due to the fact that, firstly, the market currently has low awareness of this standard, and secondly, the cost of WELL certification is quite high and exceeds the cost of similar services for BREEAM / LEED projects. The high cost of obtaining a WELL certificate is connected with the need to involve representatives of the certification organization to verify the effectiveness of the built facility (measurements of air exchange, lighting, acoustic comfort, etc.). This issue in the BREEAM system, for example, is solved by involving a network of professional assessors, WELL has no such mechanism at the moment.

Initially, the standard contained many prerequisites (about 50% of all criteria), which significantly distinguishes it from LEED or BREEAM, where the total number of prerequisites is 5-10%. The presence of a large number of preconditions in WELL is associated with the desire of the creators of the standard - International Well Building Institute - to bring uniformity in the technical and architectural features of healthy buildings. However, in the second version of the standard to increase the breadth of its application and reduce the cost of buildings built by the standard, this bar has been lowered. In addition, the reduced mandatory requirements allow the standard to adapt more flexibly to different country contexts.

The standard also changed its development model - from a one-time assessment to a model in which buildings act as subscribers to the standard and annually confirm their rating. In the world of environmental standards, an analogue with the BREEAM In-Use standard, which also requires an annual renewal, can be made.

This has significantly reduced the costs of certification fees. In addition, the standard can now be used to improve the environment in existing buildings, which greatly expands its application. Existing buildings and facilities can use the standard to continually improve and modify the environment for human health.

Despite the reduced requirements, the standard still very carefully checks the quality of air, water and acoustics for compliance with international best practice through special measurements performed by the certifying authority. Due to the fact that verification of the constructed object by an American specialist will be required, the cost of obtaining WELL for Russia still remains high. Despite this, there is already interest in the system on the market, and we can assume that in the next year or two we will see the first WELL projects.

Changes in the standard were the result of feedback from pilot projects that applied it in practice, and scientific sessions were held with industry participants in major cities to correlate the goals of the WELL standard with those of the urban environment. As a result, the standard has become better aligned with the LEED environmental standard, as well as encouraging its use. The main objective of modern urbanism is to create a healthy and resource-efficient environment - and these two objectives are inseparable from the philosophy of sustainable development. Most WELL-certified projects are also LEED-certified.