Environmental and social sustainability–emergence of well-being in the built environment, assessment tools and real estate market implications

Well-being has emerged as the new ‘green’ for buildings thought to reward occupiers, property owners, developers and other concerned actors. The new assessment tools for well-being are seen as the next step of currently widely used ‘traditional’ sustainability tools. However, a lack of knowledge globally about these tools, their compatibility and general adoption in the market due to the newness of the topic inspired this study. In the research, we aim at developing a deeper understanding of the well-being and social sustainability perspective as an innovation in relation to the built environment. The study consists of a literature review, a desktop study of sustainability and well-being rating tools and a qualitative interview data-based research on stakeholders’ position regarding the WELL-certificate adoption in the market. Lastly, the conclusions are drawn based on the results of empirical and desktop study. The results of this research benefit the scientific community by providing a better understanding of the well-being approach in the market and points out the areas of interest for further research. Practitioners can benefit from a deeper understanding of market adoption of well-being assessment tools and the development of sustainability concept in the built environment.