WELL Building Standard
Tejas Kokatnur, Elie Azar
Abstract
The building and construction industry has been focusing on making more energy-efficient buildings given the high energy and carbon intensity of the sector. Recently, the focus has been increasingly shared with building for occupant health and well-being. The WELL Building Standard (or WELL v2), first launched in 2014 by the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), is a building certification that aims to directly support and promote occupant health and well-being in buildings. Currently, there are more than 4 billion square feet of WELL projects in 124 countries. In parallel, academic studies are increasingly documenting and evaluating WELL implementations in buildings. However, the current literature is disaggregated and lacks focused review efforts to converge and corroborate conclusions from the growing number of WELL case studies and evaluations. This paper presents a review and bibliometric analysis to enhance the state of understanding of WELL, identify its strengths and weaknesses, and guide future research on the topic. A three-step methodology is proposed, including (i) an article search, screening, and selection using the Scopus database; (ii) a detailed review of the studies applying the WELL Building Standard in actual buildings; and (iii) a bibliometric analysis of the studies (e.g., sources, authors, citations) to map and understand how the field has evolved and where it is heading. The bibliometric analysis work will be implemented using the Biblioshiny (R package) and CiteSpace (Java application) tools. The paper will conclude with concrete recommendations for different stakeholders, such as building designers, owners, researchers, and policymakers.