What Is a UL Verified Healthy Building and Why Does It Matter?
For decades, you've heard about outdoor environmental quality and how it can impact your health. There's abundant research on air and water pollution and how it can make you sick. In recent decades, researchers have learned more about building health. Poor indoor environmental quality can also make you sick.
More developers now understand how a healthy building correlates with human health. Establishing a UL Verified Healthy Building helps you demonstrate your dedication to your occupants’ health and well-being.
UL Verified Healthy Buildings
The UL Verified Healthy Building Program certifies new construction projects that achieve certain measures of building health. The verification comes from UL Solutions, one of the biggest names in safety across the globe.
UL verification shows that you’re providing a safe and healthy environment for your tenants. It also helps you adapt ever-changing building standards and regulations.
Key Performance Areas
To determine whether your building makes the grade, UL Solutions assesses key performance areas.
Indoor Air Quality
Poor indoor air quality can literally make your tenants sick. Indoor air pollution causes headaches as well as ear, nose, and throat irritation. It can also trigger conditions such as asthma.
UL Solutions makes sure your building won’t make people sick by testing your indoor air quality. It tests your air and inspects your HVAC systems. It also assesses the filtration and cleaning mechanisms for these systems. Finally, it assesses your preventive maintenance efforts for keeping the air clean.
Water Quality
Without proper cleaning, water can become a breeding ground for Legionella, E. coli, and other waterborne bacteria. Stagnant water also attracts mosquitoes and grows mold.
UL Solutions makes sure all verified healthy buildings have clean water. During its inspection, it tests your water and assesses the risk of waterborne pathogens and contaminants. It also assesses your water management plan.
Hygiene
Installing smart sensors and high-tech HVAC systems means nothing if you’re not cleaning your building. If people are shuffling in and out of your building all day and some of them are sick, it’s likely going to spread.
UL Solutions considers this in its assessment, reviewing your cleaning and maintenance procedures, particularly for high-touch surfaces and critical systems.
Lighting
Working in low-light situations can cause eye strain, headaches, and fatigue. Natural light and views of the outdoors can boost occupants' mental health and productivity. If you’re designing buildings for environmental certifications, you should make good use of natural light.
UL Solutions will consider your lighting in its assessment. It will also look for flickering lights and other ambient conditions that could impact a person’s well-being.
Comparison With Other Certifications
UL Solutions awards the Verified Healthy Building mark to buildings that meet its stringent criteria for air, water, hygiene, lighting, and acoustics. Here's how it compares to other certifications.
UL vs. WELL Certification
The International WELL Being Institute's WELL Building Standard measures seven categories: air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind.
The WELL Building Standard takes a more holistic approach to factors that contribute to health and wellness in a building. For example, this certification considers whether your tenants can easily access healthy meals or exercise programs.
The UL Verified Healthy Buildings certification is backed by evidence-based standards from multiple third-party organizations. It also emphasizes the policies you have in place to maintain your healthy building.
UL vs. Fitwel Certification
Fitwel was created by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the General Services Administration. It's a certification system that helps assess new builds and existing buildings and how they impact public health.
Fitwel’s certification process is more streamlined and accessible. This program gives you clear recommendations to improve your building. UL Solutions’ verification process involves more rigorous testing.
Certification Scope and Standards
UL verification confirms your claims related to building health by applying science-based standards to your building.
Overview of UL’s Certification Process
The verification process begins with a visual inspection. UL personnel will come to test all areas of the building for indoor air quality. They'll use air sampling techniques to measure CO2, particulate matter, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), air flow, and other important indicators.
They'll then visually inspect your HVAC and other systems and check for plumbing leaks and other building flaws that could impact your indoor air and water quality.
Next up for the inspection are lighting and noise conditions along with janitorial procedures, including how often you clean high-touch surfaces. Following the on-site inspection, UL Solutions will issue a detailed report on its findings, including a gap analysis with recommendations.
Once you’ve fixed any issues that may have been uncovered, you receive your verification mark. You get a plaque or a window sticker, and you're added to the list of UL Verified Healthy Buildings.
To keep your verification, UL Solutions will regularly reinspect your healthy building, retesting the air and water quality every six to 12 months and assessing potential noise and light issues that could negatively impact your tenants.
Alignment With International Standards
The UL Verified Healthy Buildings program was developed with some of the leading safety experts in the world. The organization's standards align with similar standards from:
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers
The CDC
The Environmental Protection Agency
The World Health Organization
The U.S. Green Building Council
Services Offered by UL Solutions
UL Solutions offers more than certifications. Take advantage of these services to improve your building’s health.
Sustainability
Instead of greenwashing your marketing campaigns by discussing sustainability with no solutions, take action. UL Solutions helps you prove your commitment to sustainability in your product lines, facilities, and supply chains. It takes a science-based approach to help you assess your processes and facilities and make sustainable improvements.
Training Programs
You can learn to apply UL Verified Healthy Building standards in all of your projects through the organization's training programs. UL Solutions offers multiple courses, from asbestos and Legionella awareness to chemical compliance training.
These programs can keep you informed on new rules and regulations so you’re always in compliance.
Why Does It Matter?
A healthy building gives your occupants access to a fresh environment with minimal exposure to harmful chemicals and pathogens. Healthy buildings make people more productive and reduce the number of sick days workers need to take.
Healthy buildings also make people happier and healthier away from the office. People living in high-quality buildings report decreased levels of anxiety and depression.
Showing your commitment to keeping your buildings healthy through UL verification can help you attract and retain high-quality tenants.
Become a UL Verified Healthy Building
Attune’s IAQ monitoring platform gives you real-time data on your building’s air quality. When you’re applying for verification of your new building, outline your plan to install our IAQ platform to achieve your indoor air quality goals.
Our indoor air quality solutions are fully customizable and easy to integrate into your HVAC systems. We also offer energy and water leak detection tools that can help you monitor every aspect of your healthy building. Best of all, you can access all of your data in one location.
Schedule a demo today and learn more about how we can help you maintain your healthy building verification.
