We are delighted to welcome Moda Group to the expanding cohort of Fitwel Champions in the United Kingdom. The Build-to-Rent (BTR) investor, developer, and operator of large-scale rental neighborhoods in the UK is dedicated to creating a next generation healthy and sustainable future.

As investors continue to emphasize the importance of health, leading organizations including QuadReal are benchmarking their portfolios using the Fitwel Standard to transform data and ESG metrics into tangible findings. The process followed by QuadReal and the Center for Active Design in Health Drives Value for Real Estate illustrates the power of using Fitwel to benchmark a portfolio’s optimization for health and wellness strategies, providing a clear gap analysis and a recipe for future investments. We include the compelling findings in our second issue of Building Health: Expanding the Evidence.

Conversations at MIPIM 2024 highlighted today’s areas of opportunity to create value. Joanna Frank joined more than 20,000 real estate professionals — many of them Fitwel Champions, affiliated partners, and Best in Building Health Award winners — in Cannes, to discuss changing priorities and challenges, and the path forward. Read on for the key takeaways.

In the spirit of awards season, including the recently announced 2024 Best in Building Health Awards, this March we are turning our attention to the historical achievements in environmental design, policy, and engineering for health.

Fitwel proudly presents the 2024 Best in Building Health Awards, recognizing outstanding achievements in real estate operations and design that have been proven to improve quality of life and maximize value. PGIM Real Estate, Blackstone Real Estate's ESG leadership, Green Matrix Consulting Company, Aldar, Harrison Street, Evolution Sustainability Group, and other notable organizations are recognized for their defining excellence in building health for all.

Fitwel®, the global healthy building certification and data insights platform, launched phase two of its groundbreaking new solution that, for the first time, quantifies Social performance by overlaying health research and financial data to identify strategies that have the greatest impact on stakeholders and asset value. Phase one was successfully piloted last year in collaboration with sustainability advisor, EVORA Global.

Fitwel’s CEO, Joanna Frank, will participate in MIPIM 2024 in Cannes, France, the premier real estate event gathering the most influential players from all sectors of the international property industry. Join Joanna as she dives into the pivotal role of ‘S’ data in ESG, shedding light on how Fitwel is pioneering the definition of ‘Social’ within the real estate landscape and the transformative value in integrating social considerations into ESG strategies.

There is a proven link between health and value. The research team at the Center for Active Design has been undertaking a years-long process to examine two critical questions facing the real estate industry: what is the quantifiable value of health? and how can climate change and quality of life coexist? Learn about our new framework connecting health-promoting goals to economic value creation in our second issue of Building Health, Expanding the Evidence.

Today, we’re spotlighting one of our new Fitwel Champions, MetLife Investment Management (MIM). After becoming the first life insurance affiliated company to achieve Fitwel Certifications in 2020, it went on to recertify three of its own U.S. offices last year, including MetLife’s iconic New York City HQ. To date, MIM has achieved certifications for about 30 properties in its real estate equity investment portfolio, and that’s just the beginning.

If you weren't able to tune in to Social Synergy: Shaping up the ‘S’ in ESG webinar with Fitwel’s industry partner, EVORA Global, we've compiled the key takeaways. Hear directly from the experts who are laying the groundwork for understanding the critical – and valuable – role that health-promoting strategies play in real estate: Grace Dickinson, MPH, MSUP, Associate Director, The Center for Active Design, and Sarah Coughlan, Director and Head of Social Wellbeing at EVORA Global.

Our research team at the Center for Active Design has been undertaking a years-long process to examine two critical questions facing the real estate industry: what is the quantifiable value of health? and how can climate change and quality of life coexist? In our second issue of Building Health, we delve deeper into these topics, spotlighting the value of investing in Social to meet the demands of today and tomorrow.

Climate and health are inextricably linked. In a monumental step forward, this message was echoed in many of the publications and conversations surrounding COP28. Building on this consensus, our team compiled five key takeaways from this landmark conference, highlighting how built environment interventions can combat climate change while also prioritizing health for all.