Here’s a possible new task for environmental health and safety (EHS) managers nationwide. How healthy is your facility? There is a scorecard coming that will rate the “health” of your building and the effect on your workers. Does healthy facility = healthy workers? Why should you care as an EHS manager? Let’s take a look.
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A little background
According to the federal General Services Administration (GSA), American workers spend 1,700 hours a year on the job. The thinking is that there is a growing market demand for buildings and facilities with a wellness focus to increase productivity and health through targeted building improvements.
To that end, the GSA collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to develop Fitwel, which stands for Facility Innovations Toward Wellness Environment Leadership.
Fitwel is a building certification program that rates facilities on how well they support health and wellness. GSA and CDC contracted with the nonprofit Center for Active Design for the development of the program.
What It Is
Fitwel is a Web-based scorecard that consists of over 60 benchmark criteria that are organized by sections of a building, from the lobby to the cafeteria. A numeric score is displayed at the completion of the scorecard. Each criteria is linked to at least one of seven health-impact categories. Criteria with stronger multifaceted impacts get more points.
The seven categories are:
- Impacts community health
- Reduces morbidity and absenteeism
- Instills feelings of well-being
- Social equality for vulnerable populations
- Provides healthy food options
- Promotes occupant safety
- Increases physical activity
Criteria include such things as the design of stairwells and outdoor spaces, and policies such as indoor clean air standards and healthy food standards.
Fitwel was piloted in 89 public buildings and is being beta-tested through 2016. Full launch is scheduled for 2017.
Takeaway
Often attributed to business guru Peter Drucker, the phrase, “What gets measured gets managed,” has certainly become a mantra in the business world.
One of the goals of Fitwel certification is to encourage facility managers to work continually to increase building scores. Fitwel is a soft certification in that it is not mandatory, is meant to work toward incremental improvements, and will purportedly be low-cost. If Fitwel is adopted at your facility, as an EHS manager, you will most likely be involved in the metrics. You can look at Fitwel as an additional task or as a way to promote the effectiveness of EHS policies and jobs at your facility.
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