New Fitwel Product Lets Owners Compare Building Health to Peers

Building health certification firm Fitwel announced a new “relational data tool” to compare building health and other property factors to those of peers, according to a press release.

“Originally created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), Fitwel is the leading healthy building certification used by top real estate companies across the globe to ensure their assets are designed and operated to positively impact the health, productivity, and satisfaction of residents, employees, and tenants,” the firm says.

“While similar ranking systems exist for Environmental metrics, Fitwel’s relational data is the first of its kind to begin to track the Social pillar of ESG for the real estate industry,” it further claimed.

Environmental metrics have gained attention from government regulators globally. The Securities and Exchange Commission has scheduled final action on its proposed rule governing enhanced ESG disclosures for October 2023. The social aspects have received less attention, but might, especially as office properties face increased pressure to help tenant companies attract employees into already leased spaces. Reports on the relative health of working in a given building could become part of persuasive campaigns.

One of the problems that environmental issues have faced is a lack of commonly available and agreed-upon standards for reporting. Fitwel differs in having started with a standard for measurement, which would allow comparisons.

“As building occupants and investors alike drive demand for quality in the industry, the relational data will clearly differentiate individual properties and portfolios in the market,” the company wrote. “The side-by-side ranking provides companies with the insight needed to communicate with stakeholders – tenants and investors – on their relative performance, allowing for differentiation against peers and accurate annual reporting metrics.”

“The industry has long been asking for ranking data to understand good, better, and best,” the release quoted Joanna Frank, CEO of Fitwel, as saying. “Not only will you be able to understand where you sit in relation to your peers, but it supports continuous improvement of assets with regard to social impact by providing a quantifiable roadmap”.