RICS has partnered with Ekkist, the UK’s first health and wellbeing consultancy for the built environment, to launch a new guide to help the property industry design, deliver and manage healthier buildings.
The guide builds on RICS’ International Building Operation Standards (IBOS) and provides information covering every stage of a project, from the initial definition through to operating the completed building.
It sets out numerous ways planning and construction professionals can include features in buildings that promote health and wellbeing, or mitigate factors that damage health – from improving air quality to tackling loneliness.
RICS has also announced a new strategic collaboration with The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI). The organisations will work together to encourage built environment professionals to adopt strategies that advance health and well-being in buildings and organisations worldwide.
Paul Bagust, head of RICS property practice, said: “Across the world, millions of people will be relying on the expertise of property professionals to ensure that the buildings they use on a daily basis are healthy environments, while organisations will also be relying on the same people to provide productive environments with wellbeing at their heart.”
Olga Turner Baker, managing director of Ekkist, added: “Health and well-being has entered the forefront of forward-thinking companies’ agendas. Organisations have realised that designing for health is pivotal to their success. As a result, the adoption of global standards has grown. As one of the first companies founded globally to solely focus on this discipline, Ekkist has seen the change first hand.
“Certifications provide a common language that is credible and clear, they help mitigate risk and future-proof buildings against occupier trends, support organisations with frameworks for transparency and accountability, and provide results. They create healthier and happier people and places and add tangible social and economic value.”
Ann Marie Aguilar, senior vice president EMEA, IWBI, said: “We are proud to expand our existing relationship with RICS, and to pursue alignments between the WELL Standard and IBOS. 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.”
