This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 20, 2026 - April 26, 2026

As we spend most of our lives indoors, the quality of our built environment is as vital to our long-term health as the shelter itself.

Recognising that buildings can hinder or heal, the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) launched the WELL Building Standard in 2014. It is the world’s first building standard focused on enhancing people’s health and well-being through the built environment.

The certification focuses on 10 WELL core concepts — air, water, thermal comfort, light, movement, nourishment, sound, mind, community and materials — for which points are allotted. There are four levels of certification, based on the total number of points earned: WELL Bronze (40 points), Silver (50 points), Gold (60 points) and Platinum (80 points).

For an insight into WELL certification, City & Country spoke to NEAPOLI founder and CEO Stellios Plainiotis, who is also a WELL Accredited Professional (WELL AP). NEAPOLI is a sustainability consultancy headquartered in Kuala Lumpur with offices in London, Seoul and Athens.

“WELL is a certification about people, administered by the International WELL Building Institute. It asks a simple question: Does this space support human health and well-being, day after day? It focuses on what occupants breathe, drink, see, hear and feel, from air and water quality to lighting, thermal comfort, acoustics, materials and even the everyday policies that shape behaviour and culture,” he explains.

Compared with other building certifications, such as the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Green Building Index (GBI) and GreenRE, that address the managing of resources in the building of the overall structure, WELL looks beyond the building.

“[LEED, GBI and GreenRE’s] main purpose is to reduce environmental impact and resource use: energy and carbon, water, materials, waste and overall performance. They do cover indoor environmental quality, but as one part of a wider sustainability scorecard,” explains Plainiotis.

WELL is backed by science and peer-reviewed research. “IWBI works with physicians, epidemiologists and public health professionals. When you see a WELL requirement around air quality thresholds or lighting levels, those numbers come from evidence on what actually affects health.”

While the issue of unhealthy buildings is not new, Covid-19 raised the need to address it quickly.

“Suddenly, everyone cared about indoor air quality, ventilation and building safety. But these concerns didn’t start with the pandemic and won’t end with it. Poor indoor environments have always contributed to illness, fatigue and cognitive impairment. The pandemic just made it impossible to ignore,” Plainiotis says.

According to Plainiotis, WELL is best applied to buildings where people spend long hours, such as offices, hotels, schools and hospitals, and where organisations want a consistent and healthy experience.

“Globally, WELL is already mainstream, implemented in over 74,000 locations across 137-plus countries, covering over 5.87 billion sq ft of real estate. In practice, it has been most widely adopted in offices, which account for about 83% of WELL-certified projects.

“In Malaysia, the strongest driver is multinational organisations that need a standard they can defend globally, not just locally, and that supports talent, brand and ESG (environmental, social and governance) expectations in prime developments. This is why our early work included Malaysia’s first WELL project at Novartis’ headquarters in Selangor (alongside LEED Gold), and why we are now supporting a technology headquarters in TRX aiming for WELL Platinum,” he explains.

WELL can also be used for a single space instead of an entire building. Plainiotis says this is practical in multi-tenant assets.

“WELL can be applied to the parts you actually control — either the tenant fit-out or the base building through WELL Core [certification], which is designed for multi-tenant buildings and focuses on landlord-controlled systems and common areas.”

An example of a building that is WELL Core certified is real estate consultancy JLL Malaysia’s new 10,635 sq ft headquarters at Menara IQ, Tun Razak Exchange (TRX). The office achieved WELL Gold Certification in December 2025.

A building or a workspace design that takes the health of its users into account has been shown to produce economic benefits. Plainiotis says: “Even modest improvements in employee health and productivity have outsized impact. A half per cent productivity gain can deliver nearly 300% ROI (return on investment). The point is not just to feel good, but to perform better, more consistently, with fewer sick days and less churn.”

He points out that a peer-reviewed study in the journal Building and Environment tracked more than 1,300 people who moved from conventional offices into WELL-certified spaces. Satisfaction improved by 1.1 points on a 7-point scale. Perceived mental health rose from 41.7 to 51.7 while self-assessed productivity increased from 82.6 to 85.2.

He also highlights that in a competitive market, an organisation that prioritises its employees’ health would have an advantage over its competitors in attracting new talent.

“For building owners, they are able to earn more … MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) research on healthy buildings found rent premiums in the range of roughly 4% to 8% in major US markets,” says Plainiotis.

As for investors, he says WELL also serves as a quality signal that helps protect cash flow and makes the building more resilient to shifting occupier and ESG expectations.

The process to becoming WELL certified can take between 10 and 18 months, and is done in five stages.

“First, registration. You sign up through WELL Online, get access to tools and support, and define your scope. One critical piece of advice: Engage a WELL AP early, ideally before or during registration. A WELL AP understands the standard, knows the common failure points, and will steer you away from unnecessary spend. Bringing one in late usually costs more time and money than it saves,” says Plainiotis.

The second stage is strategy, execution and documentation, where specific interventions are developed across the 10 WELL concepts. This phase requires the architects, engineers and consultants to prepare documentation to demonstrate how the project will meet the requirements.

“Very often, WELL is pursued in an existing occupied space or during a restacking or retrofit, so you may not have a full design team in place. The work becomes a mix of practical upgrades and operational discipline: ventilation and filtration strategy, water management, lighting and glare control, acoustics, thermal comfort tuning, materials and cleaning policies. The WELL AP coordinates what matters, keeps the evidence clean, and makes sure nothing is missed,” he says.

The third stage is the documentation review, in which a third party will evaluate the submissions through a preliminary and final review. Should any technical gaps be identified, the project team will receive feedback and be given an opportunity to resubmit the documentation.

“Fourth, performance verification, which is what distinguishes WELL [from others]. A certified agent comes on site for one to three days, and physically tests the space: air quality, water samples, lighting levels, acoustics and thermal comfort.

“And lastly, the certification. Higher levels require breadth across the concepts, so you cannot game the system by excelling in only one or two areas,” Plainiotis says, adding that buildings must re-certify every three years, supported by annual reporting to ensure health standards are maintained.

The cost of certification starts with an enrolment fee of about RM12,000. The main WELL fee is 35 to 70 sen psf, depending on whether it is a tenant space or a multi-tenant base building.

“On top of that, budget tens of thousands of ringgit — often RM40,000-plus — for performance testing; more if the project is large or complex. WELL fees are rarely the real cost. The real cost comes from doing it late, guessing, then paying for rework or retesting,” he says.

Plainiotis reckons that these costs must be viewed in the context of the company’s overall expenditure.

“When people account for roughly 90% of operating costs, even modest improvements in health and productivity can outweigh the certification spend. A building that saves energy but makes occupants sick isn’t sustainable. A workplace that cuts carbon but burns out employees is missing something fundamental.”

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