How plants can help you earn a WELL Certification: Requirements, Levels, and the Case for Plants

Air quality

is essential to the health and well-being of everyone living and working in a building. The preconditions here include satisfactory indoor air quality, ventilation design, construction pollution management, and a smoke-free environment. Points can then be earned for advanced air filtration, air quality monitoring, and more. Plants belong squarely in this category: interior greenery filters common volatile organic compounds, raises indoor humidity to more comfortable levels, and — paired with well-designed living walls — supplements mechanical ventilation. Biophilic planting strategies are increasingly treated as a practical companion to filtration and monitoring, not a decorative afterthought.

Water

Access to clean water for drinking and hygiene is the precondition for this category, along with fundamental water quality indicators and management. Further points come from enhanced water quality management, hygiene support, and similar measures. Live plant installations can play a supporting role here too, since irrigation systems designed to capture and reuse rainwater or greywater reduce demand on potable supplies.

Nourishment

Preconditions require the availability of fruits and vegetables and adequate nutrition labeling. Beyond that, points can be earned for nutrition education, local food production options, and options that accommodate special diets. On-site growing — raised beds, rooftop gardens, greenhouse planters, herb walls in communal kitchens — turns local food production from an abstract goal into something residents and employees can see, tend, and eat from.

Light

Adequate light is essential for mental and biological health, so the preconditions include sufficient light exposure and good lighting design. Optimizations include daylight simulation, glare control, and occupant lighting control. Plants and natural light reinforce each other: greenery placed where daylight already falls draws people toward windows and makes daylight-driven spaces measurably more appealing — the design feature that makes occupants actually use the light the building provides.

Movement

Providing ergonomic workstations and facilitating movement throughout the building are the required preconditions. Optimizations include physical activity spaces and equipment, active furnishings, and more. Designing the landscape around planting — garden paths, stepped terraces, planted stairwells — gives that movement somewhere worth going.

Thermal Comfort

This category centers on proper temperature control; its only precondition is that temperatures across the building remain comfortable for most people at all times. Temperature zoning, humidity control, and individual thermal control earn additional points. Plants contribute modestly here, humidifying dry interior air and — in planted courtyards or green roofs — measurably moderating the heat island effect at the building's shell.

Sound

Loud buildings harm ear health and make it hard to focus, so sound mapping is the precondition: the building needs a plan for addressing noise that makes interior spaces less comfortable. Points can be earned for sound-reducing surfaces, sound barriers, and more. Dense planting works as a natural acoustic buffer — soil beds, layered foliage, and planted courtyards all absorb and scatter sound, particularly at the building's perimeter and in open interior atria.

Materials

Building materials must meet this category's preconditions, including monitoring for hazardous materials, CCA, and lead management plans, and using materials with acceptable levels of hazardous ingredients. Optimizations include VOC restrictions, waste management protocols, and more. Choosing low-VOC finishes and local, responsibly sourced growing media supports the same goal the materials rules are reaching for.

Mind

The preconditions here are mental health promotion and design features that feel natural and inspirational. A building can offer mental health services, restorative opportunities, stress management, and more to earn points. This is where plants do the most visible work. Interaction with indoor greenery is consistently linked to reduced stress, lower self-reported anxiety, and improved attention and concentration. A restorative space with living plants gives occupants somewhere to actually recover — which is precisely what the category asks for. A planted atrium, a window-lined garden room, or a quiet interior courtyard can carry the "natural and inspirational" precondition almost on its own, and simultaneously feeds the mental health service and stress management optimizations.

Community

Buildings that promote health and well-being, offer an integrative design, and maintain adequate emergency preparedness meet this category's preconditions. Points come from new parent support, emergency resources, health services, and similar benefits. Shared gardens are one of the strongest communities instruments a building has: they pull neighbors and colleagues into a common project, generate informal social contact, and give new parents, retirees, and shift workers a low-pressure way to participate in building life. A community garden is also a visible statement that the building's designers considered the people inside it — integrative design in practice.

Innovation

There are no preconditions in this category, but buildings can earn points for providing WELL certification education, adopting a green building rating system, and offering gateways to well-being.

For businesses.

Demand for sustainability and wellness initiatives keeps rising, particularly among younger generations, and certified buildings are more marketable because of it. Residential buildings with certification tend to see fewer vacancies, and better energy and water conservation lowers operating costs. Plant-forward design runs alongside those savings: well-planned landscaping and green roofs cut cooling loads, manage stormwater, and give a building a leasable identity that unplanted space cannot match.

For employees.

People no longer work for a paycheck alone — they want a good environment, a supportive community, and a fulfilling role, and a WELL-certified workplace supplies all three. It also makes recruiting considerably easier. Clean air, adequate lighting, sound temperature control, and greenery within sight of the desk help employees stay more productive and get sick less. The plants are the part people notice every day, which is exactly why they move the needle on how a workplace feels.

For the environment.

WELL-certified buildings use fewer resources and produce less pollution, which in turn fosters a greater sense of well-being and safety among employees and tenants — and tends to encourage them to keep the building as eco-friendly and healthy as they can. Planted systems close that loop: they sequester carbon, cool the surrounding block, support pollinators, and treat stormwater, all while making the case for stewardship visible to the people inside.