Say Hello to Fitwel

“Fitwel

shines a light on the role buildings can play in encouraging healthy behavior a”and lifestyle

For 2 years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the General Services Administration (GSA) piloted the Fitwel standard. The goal was to spur market transformation. During that pilot phase, GSA and CDC tested buildings across the country in rural, suburban, and urban offices specifically. Approximately 89 office buildings were chosen to showcase a variety of types, ages, and geographic locations. After tweaking the standard based on those 89, the CDC and GSA handed off the standard to the Center for Active Design.

With the vision of a healthier future, Fitwel aims for buildings and communities to strengthen health and wellbeing for occupants. It is based on the analysis of over 3,000 research studies.

In 2016, New York City’s Center for Active Design became Fitwel’s federal operator and administers the standard worldwide. To date, there are almost 2,000 registered projects, impacting over 1 million people across the globe.

While not the first rating system to focus exclusively on occupant health, FItwel excels in its streamlined approach. The ultimate goal of Fitwel is to offer unique and specific strategies to ensure owners and operators can improve wellbeing for occupants across their entire project and/or portfolio. The strategies address a range of health behaviors and risk. Using the Fitwel Portal, design and construction teams have direct access to project performance and health impact details. This easy to use digital platform allows for the evaluation and rating of health based on aspects of the built environment.

Fitwel focuses on the built environment as an opportunity. Through the years of research, Fitwel experts discovered a “clear relationship between where we spend our time, the quality, amenities and design of that environment and our individual health outcomes”. People spend close to 90% of their time indoors. It is important to prioritize wellness in design, development, and operations of the interior. Using science-based strategies, Fitwel rewards projects for addressing human health. This leads to healthier buildings and communities, impacting performance, retention and recruitment.

A few years prior, IWBI debuted WELL. Both standards have the admirable goal of creating healthy environments. However, the process and effort differ greatly between the two, allowing projects to choose which one best fits the needs. Fitwel offers a simpler and quicker certification process. As the less expensive option, it is a less rigorous process. As such, Fitwel is a good option for projects with a limited budget and accelerated schedule. It focuses on “low-hanging fruit” strategies to support continuous improvement. To add with ease, there are no prerequisites or requirements to be eligible. These strategies tend to be low cost, yet high impact. Fitwel makes wellness accessible to more projects and “shines a light on the role buildings can play in encouraging healthy behavior and lifestyle”