Healthy Building Standards & Certification Advisory
Healthy building standards can provide a useful framework for translating broad wellbeing ambitions into measurable design and operational criteria, but formal certification is not necessarily the right objective for every project.
Biofilico helps clients understand how standards such as WELL, Fitwel and RESET can inform healthier buildings and interiors, whether the intention is to pursue certification or simply use recognised frameworks to strengthen the project brief.
Our role is typically advisory and interiors-led. We can help identify an appropriate framework, review relevant health and wellbeing criteria, undertake early-stage gap analysis and translate requirements into practical recommendations for the design team.
Where formal certification is being pursued, we work alongside the appointed certification consultant, assessor, sustainability consultant and technical specialists rather than replacing them.
Choosing the right approach
Certification can provide independent recognition, accountability and a structured process for projects with clearly defined performance ambitions. For other clients, the greater value lies in using the principles behind established standards without pursuing every requirement necessary for formal certification.
We therefore begin with the project rather than the certification system. Building type, location, design stage, budget, operational model and client objectives all influence whether full certification, targeted verification or a bespoke healthy building strategy represents the most proportionate approach.
Our advisory input can include:
Certification and healthy building standards review
Early-stage gap analysis
Health and wellbeing strategy and target setting
Indoor environmental quality review
Healthy materials and interiors review
Design-team coordination
Pre- and post-occupancy considerations
Coordination with testing, certification and technical specialists
WELL
The WELL Building Standard provides a comprehensive framework for considering how buildings and interiors can support human health and wellbeing across areas including air, water, light, movement, thermal comfort, sound, materials and mind.
WELL can be particularly useful where a client wants health and wellbeing embedded systematically across a project rather than addressed through individual design interventions. Even where full certification is not pursued, its principles can provide a valuable reference point for establishing a healthy building brief and reviewing design decisions.
Matt Morley is an IWBI WELL Building Advisor, enabling Biofilico to bring current WELL knowledge into wider healthy building and wellness interior design assignments.
Fitwel
Fitwel provides another structured approach to improving health and wellbeing through building design, amenities, active environments and operational policies. Its emphasis can make it particularly relevant to workplaces, residential developments and existing buildings where design decisions need to connect with how the building will actually be used and managed.
Biofilico can use Fitwel to benchmark an existing proposal, identify gaps and establish priorities, whether the client intends to pursue certification or use the framework as an internal performance tool.
Matt Morley is a Fitwel Ambassador.
RESET Air
RESET Air differs from primarily prescriptive standards by placing particular emphasis on measured indoor air quality during occupation. This performance-led approach can be valuable where clients want greater visibility of the environmental conditions occupants are actually experiencing rather than relying solely on design-stage assumptions.
Biofilico can advise on air-quality objectives, monitoring strategy and the integration of indoor air quality into a broader healthy building brief, coordinating with appropriate local testing, monitoring and technical specialists where required.
Matt Morley is a RESET Air Accredited Professional.
Certification or healthy building strategy?
Formal certification can be valuable, but it should not become the objective at the expense of the building itself. A project can accumulate credits and documentation while overlooking aspects of the occupant experience that are particularly important to its users; equally, a project that does not pursue certification can still apply rigorous healthy building principles.
Our preference is therefore to establish what the project is trying to achieve first and then determine which standards, metrics or verification methods can best support that ambition.
For some projects this may lead to full certification. For others, it may mean using selected WELL or Fitwel principles, establishing measurable indoor air-quality targets, reviewing materials more carefully, or defining a bespoke set of healthy building priorities appropriate to the client and building type.
Working alongside environmental standards
Healthy building strategies frequently sit alongside broader sustainability frameworks such as LEED and BREEAM. These environmental standards can address important issues including energy, water, carbon, transport and ecological performance, while Biofilico’s role remains focused primarily on human health, wellbeing and the experience of interiors.
Where LEED, BREEAM or another environmental standard forms part of the project brief, we can coordinate our healthy building input with the appointed sustainability consultant and wider technical team. Biofilico does not position itself as the lead certification consultant for these environmental standards.
Healthy building standards in practice
For the refurbishment of Bolton Group’s headquarters in Milan, Biofilico reviewed a range of healthy and green building certification options as part of a wider workplace wellbeing brief. The work considered WELL, Fitwel, RESET Air and LEED Operations + Maintenance, comparing their processes, costs and relevance to the project before developing a Fitwel scorecard and gap-to-target strategy.
The exercise allowed certification to be considered as part of the project’s wider health and wellbeing objectives rather than as an isolated badge or compliance exercise.
View the Bolton Group healthy workplace case study →
Independent advice before the route is fixed
Healthy building standards are most useful when they help a project make better decisions. Establishing the appropriate route early can prevent unnecessary certification costs while identifying performance criteria that genuinely deserve greater attention as the design develops.
Biofilico provides healthy building and certification advisory across workplace, residential, hospitality, university and specialist wellness projects, either as a standalone early-stage review or as part of a wider healthy building and wellness interior design scope.
Considering WELL, Fitwel, RESET or a broader healthy building strategy?
Contact us to discuss the most appropriate approach for your project.
About the author: Matt Morley is Founder & Principal Consultant at Biofilico, advising developers, employers, architects and private clients on healthy buildings, wellness interiors and restorative environments internationally. He is an IWBI WELL Building Advisor, Fitwel Ambassador, RESET Air Accredited Professional and TEDx speaker.