From business case to return on investment – what’s working WELL in Australian workplaces?

This proposal aims to advance knowledge in this field by exploring the links in the relationship between the organisational financial decisions and healthy workspaces by identifying, quantifying, and analysing the impacts, if any, of healthy workspace’s implementation (through WELL Certification) in corporate Australia.

Driven by the voracity of the Australian real estate market, along to the impact of COVID-19, there was a rapid uptake of health, safety, and wellbeing considerations in workplaces over the last decade. Australia is now a leading country for WELL building certification in terms of certified commercial real estate.Further, Australia is placed third in the world when it comes to the amount of certified space on a square metre basis, just after the USA and China, and the fourth place in number of projects. Additionally, Australia is now a leading country for WELL building certification in terms of certified commercial real estate. In contrast with the uptake of WELL globally and in Australia, academic research is yet to be produced about the performance of certified spaces from a user, Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and organisational perspectives. This constitutes as a significant gap when closing the loop between expected and actual impact of WELL, inhibiting quantification of the benefits of the uptake of the certification on people and organizations and its Return on Investment (ROI).

Project team

Ms Cida Ghosn

Ms Lisa Munao

A/Prof Georgia Warrens-Myer

Key contact

Ms Cida Ghosn