Integral Group commits to Fitwel Certification for its offices in Vancouver, Oakland, Toronto and London during 2017

Integral Group are industry leading advocates for health and wellbeing for building users, their communities and the planet. In every project we make the case for ‘deep green engineering’ strategies to improve occupant comfort, air quality, lighting, local control and make the most of connections to the natural world.

The new Fitwel Standard provides a new opportunity for us to assess our work environment and review targeted opportunities to improve our performance across its 63 evidence-based strategies to enhance health, wellbeing and productivity. We are working towards Fitwel Certification of our offices in Vancouver, Oakland, Toronto and London during 2017. Each office has already reviewed its workspace using the Fitwel Reference Guide under the leadership of our team of Fitwel Ambassadors in the USA, Canada and UK. Our Fitwel ‘health checks’ are already yielding results – helping us to engage with the owners and operators of the buildings in which we work to the benefit of all tenants.

“Our 14 offices are living labs, providing a unique opportunity to test ideas and share lessons learnt with clients and designers ” says Integral CEO and Founder Kevin Hydes. “More importantly we want to provide a healthy, safe and nurturing environment for our staff, inspiring them to imagine the next generation of regenerative buildings. Our commitment to Fitwel Certification complements our longstanding investment in defining and piloting other health and wellness standards as we continue to help the industry move to healthier and happier workspaces”

Integral’s in-house wellness consulting group – IntregralHEALTH – work across a wide range of health and wellbeing frameworks, providing thought leadership, training, and co-ordination of research and development activities in this rapidly evolving field. IntegralHEALTH work with Clients and design teams to establish wellbeing goals, identify opportunities and develop evidence-based strategies. Their suite of reporting toolkits and project management tools are being used daily to streamline and focus the delivery of wellbeing initiatives in projects around the world.

Fitwel, a new evidence-based design standard developed by the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), enables positive impacts on building occupant health and productivity through improvements to workplace design and policies. Fitwel certification assesses building and workplace features—like the design of stairwells and outdoor spaces, proximity to public transit and fitness facilities, indoor air quality, and healthy food standards—against a baseline of criteria that create a health-promoting environment. It is administered by the Center for Active Design (CfAD).