Skanska helps introduce the WELL Building Standard™ (WELL) to the market of Central and Eastern Europe and makes a major leap towards fully sustainable buildings. WELL is the pre-eminent building standard to focus on enhancing people’s health and well-being through the built environment. Spark is one of the first office buildings to pursue WELL Certification in Poland. Skanska will also apply for certification for its projects developed in the Czech Republic, Romania and Hungary.
Administered by the International WELL Building Institute™ (IWBI™), the WELL Building Standard™ is the premier standard focusing on the influence that the places we work, live and play have on the well-being of their occupants. In order to achieve certification, WELL requires the property owner to submit documentation regarding their property, and have the property undergo rigorous testing and a final evaluation by Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI). GBCI is the third-party certification body for WELL that evaluates whether properties meet WELL performance requirements in areas such as water and air. In order to maintain certification, testing must be done every three years. Spark, developed in the Wola district of Warsaw by Skanska, will be one of the first such buildings in Poland to pursue this pioneering building standard. It will allow for the state-of-the-art implementation of WELL Certification into the Polish real estate market and will present an opportunity to popularize this standard throughout the whole CEE region.
“For us, this is a major business decision and another step towards future proof workplaces that focus on the employees’ needs and comfort. In 2009, we were the first developer in the CEE region to decide on developing all buildings in compliance with the LEED certification system and convince both tenants and investors, as well as the whole construction market that green buildings were a good thing. We are sure that it will not be any different this time. Now that LEED has become a commonplace standard, we are making yet another step and committing to one more sustainable trend. WELL is an innovative tool on the Central and Eastern Europe market that will allow us to put an even greater focus on creating friendly and healthy workplaces,” said Katarzyna Zawodna, President at Skanska Commercial Development Europe.
WELL Certification is a performance-based system for measuring, certifying, and monitoring features of the built environment that impact human health and well-being through the quality of air, water and access to light, as well as a focus on personal comfort, access to healthy foods, and the influence that buildings have on one’s body and mind.
