From Foundation to Acceleration: 2022 Reflections from Our President & CEO

From the CEO
Written By Janelle Decarreau

FROM FOUNDATION TO ACCELERATION: The Path to Defining Excellence in Building Health

As I take a moment to reflect on 2022, we can all rightly feel proud of our accomplishments. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge that our success would not have been possible without the dedication and hard work of our amazing and growing staff, and you, our global community of Champions, Partners, Providers, and Ambassadors representing 54 countries and spanning over 1 billion square feet of space. I'm grateful for everyone's generous support, commitment, and flexibility over the last year.

The past year has been a foundational one for Fitwel, where we intentionally laid the groundwork for further defining excellence in building health in 2023 and beyond. 

Fitwel’s momentum in 2022, informed by the Center for Active Design’s (CfAD) research, was fueled by the challenges and opportunities revealed after two transformational years in the healthy building movement and real estate industry. These years have found us all at a true inflection point where “building health” is now recognized as a business imperative.

Our mission is to transform the real estate market by leading the healthy building movement, which, needless to say, doesn’t happen overnight.

The movement has come a long way since the launch of CfAD ten years ago, and has accelerated considerably due to the pandemic. In real estate, mitigating risk while optimizing value has always been king. COVID-19 essentially turned “health” into a risk for business. The past year showed that the demand for healthy environments by both individuals and investors is here to stay. Prioritizing health is no longer a reactive market trend – it’s an established business imperative that represents both a risk and an opportunity for real estate. 

One of this year’s top milestones was Fitwel’s benchmarking study, conducted across three major asset classes in partnership with QuadReal Property Group. The resulting report, Health Drives Value in Real Estate, substantiated just as the title reads: there is a direct correlation between implementing health-promoting strategies and real estate value – increased tenant demand, NPS scores, occupant performance, well-being, and the bottom line.

While ESG has become mainstream in real estate investments, connecting the social “S” to value has remained elusive – until now. As part of our larger commitment to the industry in quantifying ESG from the people perspective in 2022 we published the Guide to Measuring “S” which outlines metrics for quantifying “S” and how to use asset-level Fitwel strategies to boost entity-wide metrics. To help put the “S” Guide into practice, we released the Fitwel-GRESB Crosswalk for Workplace and Multifamily Scorecards, a tool that compares Fitwel strategies to real estate’s leading ESG framework, GRESB. These resources, along with Fitwel’s data-driven platform, provide standardized, science-backed strategies and tools that ensure our industry can respond to tenant demand and future-proof assets in 2023 and beyond.

And to support our rapidly growing business in 2022, we invested in and hired a diverse and experienced leadership team, formalized Active Design Advisors’ business and management structure, and welcomed strategic investment from cutting-edge proptech and ESG investor RET Ventures and industry-leading REIT, Kilroy Realty Corp.

It's been a landmark year! And with these achievements in place, we’ve set the stage to further define excellence in building health.

Together we are leading a movement, adding value, and creating lasting change — one where market transformation isn't a fleeting response to a crisis, but a sustainable, accessible methodology adopted through healthier, equitable, evidence-based, and people-centric building practices. This will be accomplished by continuing to collaborate with partners who are leading by example, using data-driven, scalable technology, and will be carried out by our trusted and growing team of professionals and partners across the industry.

From all of us at Fitwel, we look forward to continuing our journey together with you, and welcoming new partners in 2023. We wish you all a very healthy and happy holiday season and a prosperous new year.

Joanna Frank

President & CEO

Active Design Advisors, Inc. (Adai), and nonprofit research organization, Center for Active Design (CfAD), the operators of Fitwel.

 

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Janelle Decarreau
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