10 Minutes to a Better Building: Exploring WELL Certification to Boost Businesses

Living, working, and recreational environments can make all the difference when it comes to your health, mood, and wellbeing. Host Tyler Kern spoke with Tom Lattomus, Controls Account Executive at Boland, about the WELL Building Certification, which affords business owners the opportunity to positively impact these environments to improve health.

The WELL Building Certification provides industry professionals with the opportunity to demonstrate advanced knowledge in human health, wellbeing and how this interacts with building environments. Lattomus explained, “The WELL building standard is a vehicle for owners, property managers, architects, engineers for building organizations to build more thoughtful and intentional spaces.” The certification includes studying webinars and content, and practice exams are available online. Those wishing to become certified must sit for a live or proctored exam within a year.

The benefit of this certification is that it shows a business’s commitment to fostering health and wellbeing in their environment. Examples of features a business may choose to address include air quality, water quality, natural light presence, exposure to nature, and selection and quality of building materials.

Ultimately, the WELL Certification provides businesses with the opportunity to better serve clients with evidence-based design connections. “The aim is to advance the health through better design, operational protocols and policies, and foster culture of health and wellbeing,” said Lattomus. This has become even more important post-pandemic as individuals have focused more on the indoor spaces where they live and work.

Lattomus encouraged those considering the certification to pursue it to invest in employees and bring better service to clients. “It’s hard to improve what you don’t measure,” he said. The WELL Standard and strategies that come with it help to identify facets that can be improved and measure ways to improve them.