Most multifamily owners and operators today realize that it is our responsibility to care about our residents’ overall well-being. The choices we make regarding the apartment communities they live in have a profound impact on residents’ health and wellness now and in the future, which is why it is critical to ensure we are making the right choices at our properties.

The Multifamily Impact Council defines the principle of Health and Wellness as the incorporation of healthy building design and property management practices that create and maintain living conditions that protect and enhance the health of renters.

According to a study by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, whose results were released in March 2023, “The housing and communities in which people live can impact their health and access to healthcare. There are well-documented links between income, housing, and health.” In other words, we have the power to enhance our residents’ health and wellness through healthy building practices. And when we invest in healthy, financially stable renters, we can create healthy, financially stable properties.

In this month’s newsletter, we discuss the importance of championing resident health and wellness with Krista Egger, Vice President of Building Resilient Futures, Enterprise Community Partners; Kelly Worden, VP, ESG and Investing for Health, International WELL Building Institute PBC; and Sara Karerat, Managing Director, Center for Active Design. All three women are highly experienced in healthy building practices and how they deeply impact multifamily residents. Kelly and Krista also elaborate on the recent partnership between their two organizations, which demonstrates how stakeholders can collaborate to establish common standards of practice in their areas of expertise—the goal of Multifamily Impact Council.

We hope you find this Q&A helpful as you continue on your multifamily impact investment journey and seek ways to incorporate healthy building practices into your operations.

Bob Simpson

President and CEO

Krista Egger, Vice President of Building Resilient Futures, Enterprise Community Partners

Krista Egger manages national sustainability efforts, including the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria, the nation’s only national green building program designed explicitly for green affordable housing construction. She has more than 15 years of experience leading energy efficiency and healthy housing initiatives with affordable housing stakeholders, including leading the technical development and public roll-out of the 2015 and 2020 Enterprise Green Communities Criteria and providing strategic oversight for its certification program and Health Action Plan framework, which pairs public health professionals with affordable housing development teams.

Kelly Worden, VP, ESG and Investing for Health, International WELL Building Institute PBC

Kelly leads development of resources to help organizations place people at the center of their ESG (environmental, social, governance) strategy and investment. Kelly has focused her career on working upstream to promote population health and social equity. Prior to joining IWBI, Kelly co-directed the Green Health Partnership, an applied research initiative of the University of Virginia School of Medicine and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. She worked with both USGBC and GRESB to develop real estate processes and industry standards to benefit people and society.

This includes the LEED Integrative Process for Health Promotion for use by green building practitioners and the GRESB Health & Well-being Module for use by real estate companies and investors. GRESB is the leading provider of ESG benchmarks for real assets and the GRESB Health & Well-being Module was the first portfolio-level health assessment for real estate. The Module was integrated into the GRESB Real Estate Assessment in 2019. Kelly also has experience working in global health advocacy at the World Heart Federation in Geneva, Switzerland. She holds a Master of Public Health from George Washington University and a B.S. in Human Biology from the University of Texas in Austin.

Sara Karerat, Managing Director, Center for Active Design

Sara Karerat has worked at CfAD for seven years. Before being appointed Managing Director in 2023, she served as the Director of Applied Research, where she grew the Applied Research Team, expanded the organizational understanding of ESG, and contributed to the development of new Fitwel product offerings. In addition, Sara has authored several publications on the intersection of health and the built environment, including Healthcare: A Cure for Housing and a series titled Research to Action: Building Health for All® in the Face of COVID-19. She holds a Master of Public Health from Columbia University with a certificate in Health Promotion Research and Practice.

Krista and Kelly, the partnership between your two organizations is an example of industry collaboration towards common standards of practice, which is so aligned with the MIC vision. Please tell us about the partnership and how the alignment between the WELL Building Standard and Enterprise Green Communities Certification works.

Krista Egger: Since the launch of our Green Communities standard nearly two decades ago, improving resident health and well-being have remained essential components of the certification, and they continue to be key priorities for residents and housing providers. As a progression of that commitment, in 2019, Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise) and the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) formed a partnership to work together and advance our shared vision for healthier, more efficient and environmentally responsive affordable homes and communities by offering housing providers joint certification to Green Communities and the WELL Building Standard.

To date, 61 multifamily developments with 4,108 homes across the United States have achieved joint certification. Examples stretch from Thessalonica Court, a moderate rehabilitation in Bronx, N.Y., developed by Jonathan Rose Companies, to Volunteers of America’s newly built Cadence in Fort Collins, Colorado. These developments are showing what’s possible when it comes to creating healthy, sustainable, and climate-resilient affordable homes.

Kelly Worden: Partnering with Enterprise allowed IWBI to combine its expertise – promoting health through buildings – with the expertise and reach of Enterprise Green Communities within the affordable housing sector. By integrating a set of WELL v2 features into Green Communities, Enterprise elevated its commitment to healthy homes with a standard backed by evidence-based strategies as do any projects that implement the 2020 Enterprise Green Communities criteria. The infusion of WELL strategies into Enterprise Green Communities also offers an integrated approach that promotes the health of both people and planet.

What does this partnership mean for each of your organizations?

Krista Egger: We’re grateful for the expertise that IWBI brings to Green Communities as we strive to provide a clear pathway for developers to prioritize residents’ health in the design, construction and operations of affordable homes. With our 40 years of experience and over one million homes created, Enterprise knows that well-being is the foundation of home. By offering developers tools, support, and a flexible roadmap to achieve Green Communities certification, we’re helping them ensure a range of health benefits, from lowering the risk of childhood asthma by protecting indoor air quality to promoting mental health through design elements such as wider hallways, good lighting in community areas, and access to nature.

Kelly Worden: At IWBI, we know health begins at home. This partnership creates the potential for health-focused WELL strategies to be implemented in millions of affordable homes. It is an important vehicle to help IWBI deliver on our vision for health equity – to advance healthy places for anyone, anywhere. The Enterprise-IWBI collaboration started five years before IWBI launched the WELL for residential pilot standard in 2024, a new evidence-based, third-party verified certification program designed to transform the way homes are designed, built and maintained to support human health and well-being for homes at all price points and all around the world. IWBI values the Enterprise partnership as it allowed for the expertise embedded within the WELL Standard to extend to the housing sector years before IWBI was able to offer a residential-focused standard.

Where do you see the principle of wellness in multifamily communities heading in the future? What are the goals the industry is trying to achieve?

Krista Egger: We have come so far from the days when folks asked, “Can we really make it green and affordable?” The change we’ve seen since the launch of our earliest iteration of Green Communities has been truly transformational. I’m proud of what our field has accomplished collectively, and I know there’s so much more we can do. The unprecedented focus and infusion of resources through the Inflation Reduction Act and other federal policies create a wealth of opportunities that will make homes healthier and cheaper to operate. Enterprise is part of the Power Forward Communities coalition, which received a $2 billion grant from the National Clean Investment Fund. Starting this fall, we’ll provide financing and technical assistance to help communities phase out older technologies, weatherize homes, and make them more efficient and affordable.

Green Communities remains a trusted, viable path to attaining these and other important health and sustainability goals, and we couldn’t be more excited to continue leading this work in partnership with valued collaborators like IWBI.

Kelly Worden: Over the past few years, we’ve also seen an unprecedented level of demand for healthier homes. We’ve seen several converging factors drive the increased demand for healthy homes, including the rising impacts of climate change. Increased frequency of wildfires, heat waves and flooding all pose elevated health challenges. This plus the blurred lines between home and office place new and greater demands on our homes.

We’ve also seen increasing home prices exacerbate inequalities in housing access. The infusion of new forms of capital – namely, private equity – into the residential sector offers a massive opportunity to address the housing shortage. During this shift, collaborations such as the Multifamily Impact Council have an important role to play in guiding industry behavior that is both environmentally and socially responsible. IWBI is proud to be a founding member of the MIC to support the multifamily industry’s efforts to build a sustainable future.

Homes with enhanced health features are becoming the new norm. The WELL for residential program is launched to facilitate this market transformation and accelerate the new norm into a common practice. IWBI remains committed to supporting the multifamily industry in partnership with Enterprise Green Communities and other standards such as LEED. Given the critical influence that homes have over our health, we anticipate an increase in the residential application of certifications that protect the environment while promoting health and well-being.

Sara Karerat: Our partners within the multifamily residential sector are committed to creating more resilient portfolios that mitigate risk and optimize value. What leaders in the industry have realized is that futureproofing their portfolios requires them to meet the needs and demands of their residents. This often means prioritizing resident health and well-being. For example, one Fitwel user, AMLI Residential, found that 71% of their residents place an increased value on the healthy building features in their apartment communities. In addition, in our research at the Center for Active Design, we have found that more than anything, residents want their multifamily communities to feel well maintained, with operations strategies playing a significant role in tenant satisfaction — often even more so than amenities. Looking to the data and supporting consistent gathering of metrics can help ensure multifamily communities are able to prioritize those changes that are going to have the greatest impact.

Anything else you would like to add?

Sara Karerat: Excited to share that we just launched our Fitwel v3 Standard, which reflects the latest research connecting public health and the built environment. One of the central themes addressed is climate change resilience. In recent years, we are increasingly witnessing the urgent need to ensure our spaces and places are not only designed and operated to mitigate climate change but also to adapt to the extreme weather realities we are already facing. Looking at multifamily residential assets from a human perspective helps us better understand the full impact of interventions aimed at climate change resilience. For example, integrating more greenery around buildings can help lower temperatures, ultimately resulting in reduced energy use and therefore lower building costs. In addition, increasing greenery can also decrease risk of heat exhaustion, which is tied to enhanced productivity. Just one example of how one intervention can result in diverse benefits that can help multifamily stakeholders achieve their goals.

Company Updates

The demand for multifamily impact investing is strong, and innovative individuals and organizations like the Multifamily Impact Council are stepping up to meet this need. If you haven’t yet done so, be sure to check out MIC’s Multifamily Impact Framework™, a market-based set of standards for multifamily industry impact principles and reporting guidelines. The framework is invaluable and available to download and adopt free of charge.

We’re proud to report that MIC recently held our Quarterly Impact Collaborative Call for Q1. The call provides an update on our members’ activity in the impact investing space and where this sector is heading. The recording of this call is now available. To receive this recording, please complete the form at https://multifamilyimpactcouncil.org/multifamily-impact-collaborative-call/.

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