At IWBI, we recognize that human health is inextricably linked to both the health of our planet and the strength of socioeconomic institutions that support everyday life. The environment can support health by providing fresh air, clean water, healthy food and green spaces for physical activity and social connection. Similarly, systems that promote equal access to education, resources, and economic opportunity can reinforce mental, emotional and social well-being. Thus, strategies that support human health must go hand-in-hand with actions that improve education, reduce inequality, catalyze economic growth, confront climate change and protect our environment.

The WELL Building Standard recognizes these connections by offering a balanced, integrated framework of strategies that, while supporting the health of individuals within buildings, also seek to enable the wider community and surrounding environment to thrive. WELL features that promote clean air and water, daylight and safe materials are side-by-side with those that require organizational transparency, civic engagement, and equal access to health services and education. But to truly establish a world in which people and planet can thrive, we need to join hands with global, cross-sector partners committed to similar goals. That’s why we’re thrilled to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were set forward by the United Nations as part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that was adopted by UN Member States in 2015. The SDGs set 169 specific, measurable targets across a wide range of interdependent social, economic and environmental issues ranging from reducing poverty to tackling climate change. Together, the SDGs form a call to action for countries and institutions around the world to partner toward building an equitable society and flourishing planet.

By mapping WELL v2 pilot features to the 17 SDGs, we sought to highlight the multi-faceted impact of WELL in a global context while identifying further opportunities to evolve WELL into an even more comprehensive framework. The results of our mapping exercise, shared below, reveal that WELL spaces are not just healthy spaces - they are also inclusive, resilient, sustainable, inspirational spaces with impacts reaching far beyond the scale of a single building. Above all, WELL’s alignment with the SDGs reinforces the powerful opportunity we all have as global caretakers to catalyze our built spaces as mechanisms to deliver health and wellness benefits to the individuals within them, the wider community, and our surrounding environment.

Every WELL feature has been visually tagged to identify which goal(s) it addresses, making it easy for WELL owners to select features that support their project’s SDG ambitions.