The International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) recently announced the launch of the WELL Performance Rating, a new rating that recognizes building owners and operators for achieving excellence in healthy building performance aimed to enhance the well-being and experience of the people inside. The announcement was made during the WELL Summit, with IWBI leading partner organizations driving a movement for people-first places forward through application of WELL at scale.
Developed in collaboration with a host of industry leaders in smart building technologies and with input from IWBI Performance Advisory, WELL Performance Testing Organizations (PTOs) and WELL Enterprise Providers (EPs), the WELL Performance Rating provides a roadmap for organizations to demonstrate excellence in occupant experience and building performance across key indoor environmental quality (IEQ) indicators related to air quality, water quality, thermal comfort, acoustics and lighting.
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Watch this session from the NFMT Remix trade show that took place in November 2021 in Orlando, FL
Presented by David Trask (originally appeared in fnPrime).
With 40% of facilities professionals retiring in the next five years, facility teams will be left with a serious knowledge shortfall. But how do you quantify the loss of that institutional knowledge? In this session, we’ll discuss easy ways to keep critical information from walking out the door, and how to arm your teams with tools to capture, document and instantly access and share facility information.
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A sharp increase in construction of life sciences labs in the U.S. has included big gains in a premium category: conversions of office buildings to labs. According to a report from CBRE, office-to-lab conversions in progress in the 12 largest U.S. life sciences markets at the end of 2021 amounted to 9.9 million sq. ft., up 49 percent from the beginning of the year. In comparison, ground-up lab construction increased 42 percent to nearly 18.8 million sq. ft. by the end of 2021.
To be sure, both measures increased greatly. But the jump in conversions underscores the challenges in building enough lab space to meet demand in recent years. Lab vacancy in many top markets sits at 4 percent or less.
The cost to fit out lab space with necessary plumbing, ventilation, clean rooms and other specialized considerations can be double to triple that of fitting out standard office space. Even so, the increase in conversion activity last year indicates developers and investors are willing to cover those costs to capture the potential rent growth of lab space in comparison to office.
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A new framework from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) is set to improve building use, supporting more flexible work and putting people at the center of decisions. RICS is a global professional body for qualifications and standards in land, real estate, construction and infrastructure.
RICS will provide organizations an interactive easy-to-use framework, supported by an assessment tool, to measure and benchmark building performance by collecting consistent data to satisfy the latest needs of occupiers, investors, advisors and end users, particularly as workers return to the office.
As Covid-19 turned how we interact with commercial property on its head, and people look to return to work, the International Building Operation Standard or IBOS is set to support organizations in attracting people back to the workplace, by delivering confidence for end users that the building they’re in is supporting their wellness, and benchmarking success against driving down the commercial sector’s carbon footprint.
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Global hygiene and health company Essity announced earlier this year that the company has acquired the U.S. professional wiping and cleaning company Legacy Converting, Inc. The company offers products within the categories of sanitizing and disinfecting wet-wipes, chemical-ready wipes and dry wipes. Essity is a major global supplier of products and services in the market for professional hygiene with its leading Tork brand.
Legacy Converting manufactures the Everwipe brand of roll and folded wipes in a variety of formats, including pop-up canister, bucket and resealable packs. Customers are mainly found in the industrial and office supply, public interest, commercial and healthcare market segments. Founded in 2004 by trained physician Dr. Jason Slosberg, Legacy Converting moved its headquarters and operations to a brand new, state-of-the-art factory and warehouse in Bordentown, New Jersey, in late 2020 after experiencing sales growth amounting to 183%.
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With a limited talent pool and a competitive hiring landscape, a key challenge for employers is finding enough talent to effectively manage their facilities and enable their organizations to meet their strategic goals. Instead of relying on external recruitment, more employers are using internal training funds to help FM staff with high potential build the right skills while increasing confidence and credibility. For built environment professionals, 2022 is proving to be a year of rebuilding and growth worldwide.
Since 2019, the Professional Facility Management Institute (ProFMI) and Building Operating Management (BOM) magazine have been conducting the Facility Management (FM) Training Outlook Survey to determine the need for facility management training and credentials from both the management and staff points of view. The latest survey was conducted in February and March of 2022 to identify FM workforce trends, determine the current need for FM training and credentials, and gauge how sentiments may have shifted over time.
This study answered several key questions in four categories: Building and retaining the FM workforce; the value of FM training; addressing the FM skills gap; and the important of FM credentials and qualifications.
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Pluie, provider of self-sanitizing diaper changing tables, has announced several new venues in recent months that are adopting its industry-reinventing ultraviolet (UV-C)-powered tables for their restrooms. One of the most recent is The Fashion Mall in Indianapolis. The mall joins other locations such as the Texas Rangers’ new Globe Life Field, Peppa Pig Theme Park, the White Sox ballpark, and the Angel Harvey Family Health Center. In fact, Pluie can now be found in 20 states across the country at museums and amusement parks, hotels, restaurants, healthcare facilities, major retailers, stadiums, schools and more.
The Fashion Mall at Keystone is the country’s first shopping center to offer Pluie. Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group chose to add Pluie’s innovation to improve their guest experience — making it safer, healthier, more comfortable, and more convenient for the young families the mall serves. The Fashion Mall offers Pluie changing stations in both the men’s and women’s restrooms near a children's play area..
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NeoCon 2022 is expected to host a large number of facilities managers, college and university planners, and other workplace professionals as they investigate resources for transforming their offices to meet worker expectations and learning environments that respond to teachers and students following the pandemic. From June 13 to 15, NeoCon will offer daily on-site keynotes and special programs as well as 47 virtual CEU-accredited programs from leading industry experts from a wide cross-section of fields. The sessions will span eight program tracks: Workplace, Healthcare, Education, Facilities, Wellness, Sustainability, Design Skills, and Industry Direction and delve into the topics that are making an impact on the design industry.
The Facilities and Workplace tracks offer CEU-accredited sessions on the latest in facility design and management topics, and today’s fundamental shifts in work and the workplace. The McMorrow Reports / FMLink editorial team plans to attend all of these sessions, which will be available live online as well as anytime on demand through July 15, 2022.
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New events posted this week
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