What is a Healthy Building? Here’s the Foundation

Strategies & SolutionsCertificationHealthy Building Profiles
Written By Marcos Reynaga

Fitwel optimizes buildings for occupant health and safety through a mix of siting, design and operational strategies that measurably improve physical, social, and mental health indicators.

Healthy Building strategies shown in illustration:

1. Daylight in regularly occupied spaces

2. Tobacco-free rooftop garden and outdoor space

3. Break area with hygiene signage and enhanced cleaning 

4. Fruit and vegetable garden

5. Bathrooms with hand hygiene signage and PPE

6. Flexible multi-purpose room and views of nature

7. Tobacco-free indoor space

8. Meditation and yoga studio

9. Open and visible stairs with enhanced cleaning 

10. Biophilia / indoor greenery

11. PPE and sanitation stations

12. Gym facility plus showers and lockers

13. Health and wellness certification plaque 

14. Covered and secure bike parking

15. Views of nature

16. Enhanced IAQ and operable windows

What makes a building healthy?

We believe that every building can be a healthy building. And as the demand for health-promoting built environments continues to grow, we’re often asked: what exactly makes a building healthy?

At the fundamental level, we believe becoming a healthy building is a process. The Fitwel Platform guides real estate leaders through a cost-effective, streamlined process that is optimized for a range of asset classes and designed for scale.

We do this by partnering with the Center for Active Design and the US CDC to translate a rich evidence base of public health research into practical, implementable strategies tailored to the local population whose impact can be quantified and measured. This foundational three-step process, which is applicable to both projects in the design and built stages across a range of asset types, enhances your value proposition and mitigates risk, demonstrates your commitment to occupant health and well-being, boosts tenant satisfaction, and strengthens data-driven reporting for ESG initiatives.

Let's break it down, step by step.

The first step is to understand the needs of your stakeholders, particularly the people within the building as well as the surrounding communities. All real estate is always local. What matters in Singapore will be different from what London and New York City occupants value. That is the key to any business, particularly when it comes to real estate.

Learn more about the value of investing in Healthy Building Certification:

The second step is to identify and implement a set of evidence-based design and operational strategies to respond to and meet those needs.

Learn more about Fitwel Strategies, Scorecards, and Star Ratings:

The third step is to measure the outcomes of those strategies to understand the impact they have on both people’s health as well as the financial outcomes expected.

Learn more about how you can benchmark your building or portfolio with our Benchmarking Guide:

Have additional questions about the Fitwel Certification System? Download our 2022/2023 Submission Workbook or search our Help Center FAQs.

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Marcos Reynaga
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