by Brianna Crandall — April 8, 2015—The World Green Building Council has launched a new global campaign on healthy buildings that will cover a range of building types, following last year’s well-received report, Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices: The next chapter for green building.
The project will begin with the retail sector, work on which will be led by the UK-GBC, and will be international in scope, ensuring the outputs are relevant for the retail sector globally. Retailers, as well as those who invest in, develop and manage retail property, are increasingly keen to understand the relationship between sustainable store design, the health and wellbeing of staff and customers, and profit, notes the WorldGBC.
The project will seek to adapt existing ways of measuring health, wellbeing and productivity set out in last year’s report, specifically for the retail sector at first, to help strengthen the business case for sustainable stores. The project will also pilot the metrics in real stores.
The first announced sponsors of the new global campaign are ARUP, Land Securities, Marks and Spencer, Skanska and Saint-Gobain. Each company is offering its expertise to help expand the research, promote the program, and encourage the use of the factors to inform business decisions.
The Retail Task Group will publish its interim results in mid-2015, and the first schedule of work is expected to be completed by early 2016.
The free Healthy Offices app, available for iPad and Android, was recently launched. It allows users to explore last year’s report in a more interactive format, with new case studies and opinion pieces.
