First WELL Portfolio Scores demonstrate commitment to health through a portfolio-wide approach

New York--(Antara/Business Wire)- The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) today announced that global real estate leaders JLL and Lendlease are the first companies to earn WELL Portfolio Scores for achieving the initial benchmarks toward certification of their portfolio of assets participating in the program.

JLL and Lendlease are the first commercial tenant occupier and first commercial owner, respectively, to receive their WELL Portfolio Scores, underscoring the commitment of both companies to ensure the health and well-being of those who occupy their suite of offices and buildings across their portfolios.

The dual achievement marks a major milestone for these perennial early adopters and also for the WELL Portfolio program, which was introduced in 2018 and enables organizations to enhance their spaces and improve human well-being by applying the WELL Building Standard (WELL), the world’s leading health-focused building standard, at scale.

“WELL Portfolio is a mechanism that can guide organizations on a journey to implement, assess and celebrate proven wellness strategies and performance at scale, enabling participants to impact the well-being of many while improving their competitive advantage. And that is exactly what we see with the portfolios of these incredible market leaders,” said Rick Fedrizzi, IWBI Chairman and CEO. “JLL and Lendlease have long been leaders in adoption of cutting-edge real estate strategies that advance the health of their businesses by supporting the health and productivity of their people and the improved performance of their buildings. We are proud to celebrate this latest achievement with them.”

The WELL Portfolio program was launched to help owners, developers and tenants streamline and scale the health and wellness strategies found in WELL across multiple assets in their real estate portfolios and throughout their organizations. The score is a metric that accrues over a period of time, as health-focused WELL features are achieved across all projects within the portfolio. It may serve as a metric for recording incremental progress, advancing environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals, and measuring portfolio-wide health and well-being achievements against other peers participating in the WELL Portfolio program.

Companies can benefit from more efficient pathways to implement WELL’s design, operations and policy-based strategies across multiple properties, with the option to pursue WELL Precertification, WELL Certification, and/or the newly launched WELL Health-Safety Rating for Facility Operations and Management for individual properties within their portfolios. The program offers flexibility to meet portfolio-wide needs and provides solutions for a variety of new and existing projects and space types.

Fedrizzi noted that through the WELL Portfolio Score, WELL Portfolio participants can celebrate ongoing milestones during their WELL journey, with WELL Certification as the ultimate achievement.

Fedrizzi added that WELL Portfolio participants benefit from customized tools and high-touch support, including a reporting dashboard that can help companies measure progress and improve outcomes over time – enabling the greatest possible impact on an entire portfolio’s value and, more importantly, the well-being of the people who work, live and learn in the individual spaces.

JLL’s portfolio encompasses 194 properties across Asia Pacific and North America, three of which are already WELL Certified and two that are WELL Precertified. Altogether, the wellness strategies incorporated by JLL into the fabric of the buildings within their portfolio as well as their operations and policies impact more than 23,000 people across 18 countries.

“The well-being being of our people and our clients is of utmost importance to JLL. We have long been supportive of WELL as the industry benchmark for health standards in buildings. That’s why we undertook this project to enroll our portfolio last year and are extremely proud to be the first, along with our client Lendlease, to achieve the WELL Portfolio Score,” says Matthew Clifford, Global Product Owner, Energy and Sustainability Services, JLL. “More than ever, we need to ensure that our buildings and workplaces support the physical, psychological and social health of those who occupy them. Our WELL Portfolio Score is a further step in our commitment to improving our work environment and amenities for all our employees so they can experience a greater sense of happiness and wellness at work.”

The Fortune 500 professional services firm, as well as Lendlease’s AU$13 billion office platform in Australia, are leveraging the features embedded within WELL to support tenant customers and staff to prepare their spaces for re-entry after the COVID-19 pandemic, and to ensure that all assets – both new and existing – benefit from the health-promoting strategies of WELL.

“From the outset, JLL and Lendlease have inherently understood the value of delivering better buildings that help people thrive and organizations succeed,” said IWBI President Rachel Gutter. “Through WELL Portfolio, these two market leaders are setting the tone for what it means to instill a culture of health that is embedded not only within the building itself, but throughout an organization’s operational and policy protocols. We believe their bold and early steps will help raise the importance and accelerate the integration of human health and well-being in buildings and workplaces worldwide.”

Lendlease’s commercial WELL Portfolio rating comprises three Australian funds with 14 assets totaling 569,216 square meters (6.1 million square feet): Australian Prime Property Fund Commercial, Lendlease One Internation Towers Sydney Trust (Tower One at Barangaroo) and Lendlease International Sydney Trust (Towers Two and Three and International House at Barangaroo). Through its WELL Certification efforts, Lendlease has sought to attract and retain top investors and tenants by transforming the built environment into solid investment opportunities. Three of its WELL Portfolio properties have already achieved WELL Certified Platinum, the remaining 11 are WELL Precertified, and together these projects impact nearly 60,000 people.

“Lendlease has always held a belief that highly sustainable assets deliver superior health and wellness benefits for both the environment and our tenant customers. These assets are also being sought out by investors as a way of creating both environmental and social value, alongside long-term risk adjusted financial returns,” said Kylie Rampa, CEO of Property at Lendlease. “WELL provides an important global benchmark for health in buildings that supports positive change in the industry. Our world first office portfolio rating is a significant milestone as we continue to transform the built environment to offer healthier workplaces for tenant customers by delivering improved indoor environments with a focus on air, natural light, active movement and stringent cleaning practices in an effort to ensure a safe return to work post COVID19.”

JLL and Lendlease are long-time strategic partners with each other and with IWBI, and share a vision for spaces that can positively impact people’s health and deliver strong investment outcomes. Lendlease has engaged JLL for the property management of its commercial portfolio and the JLL Energy & Sustainability Services team serves as the WELL consulting team supporting both sets of portfolios.

To learn more about the WELL Portfolio program, visit www.wellcertified.com/portfolio.

The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) is leading the global movement to transform our buildings, communities and organizations in ways that help people thrive. WELL v2 is the most recent version of its popular WELL Building Standard (WELL), and the WELL Community Standard pilot is a district scale rating system that sets a new global benchmark for healthy communities. WELL is focused exclusively on the ways that buildings and communities, and everything in them, can improve our comfort, drive better choices, and generally enhance, not compromise, our health and wellness. IWBI mobilizes the wellness community through management of the WELL AP credential, the pursuit of applicable research, the development of educational resources, and advocacy for policies that promote health and wellness everywhere. IWBI is a participant of the United Nations Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate citizenship initiative, and helps companies advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the use of WELL. More information on WELL can be found here.

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Kristen Coco