Insight
Setting the platinum standard of wellbeing design across the blue light estate
15 Dec 2025
Lucila Porthe
Senior sustainability consultant
The workplaces that our police, fire and ambulance operatives use daily should support them as much as they support our communities. For blue light estates, this means designing spaces that actively promote wellbeing: helping frontline staff feel valued and able to perform at their best.
Here, Lucila Porthe, Senior Sustainability Consultant at Pick Everard, explains what the WELL Building Standards are and how they can be applied to blue light projects to create healthier, more supportive spaces for those who serve us.
Why wellbeing matters
Frontline workers face intense physical and emotional challenges every day. Rising sickness and burn out rates, and higher expectations for wellbeing services from new staff, are often reported by our police forces, but these pressures are also felt across our fire and ambulance services.
To combat these issues, we can start by integrating wellbeing into the design of the workplace, through the WELL Building Standard framework, which has been created to support long-term staff health, improve performance, and contribute to retention and satisfaction.
By placing people at the centre of decision-making in design, we can ensure blue light estates truly reflect the needs of their teams and the communities they serve.
What are the WELL Building Standards?
Developed by the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI), the WELL Building Standard is a globally recognised framework for designing spaces that advance human health and wellbeing.
The WELL framework is founded on ten key concepts that influence wellbeing within the built environment:
- Air
- Water
- Nourishment
- Light
- Movement
- Thermal comfort
- Sound
- Materials
- Mind
- Community
Applying the WELL framework to blue light design
At Pick Everard, we tailor the WELL principles to meet the specific demands of blue light estates.
Whether a scheme involves new build or refurbishment, our goal is to apply the full set of WELL strategies.
Helping projects achieve WELL outcomes (whether focusing on building performance or improving workspaces) is reliant on an understanding of the different pathways to achieve certification.
In this, having a variety of routes to WELL offers flexibility in the way that evidence-based, third-party validation is achieved; accordingly, each involves several different scoring criteria and thus offers their own particular benefits to gain.
WELL pathways
WELL certification offers different building performance pathways for clients, depending on whether they are seeking to certify.
- a new building or a new refurbishment (WELL V2)
- a masterplan (WELL Communities) or
- focus on targeted strategies within these boundaries (WELL Ratings)
Whether improving workplace practices, or disease prevention and recovery rates, there is a flexible WELL solution to suit a project’s needs.
Organisations looking to implement WELL across a portfolio can particularly benefit from cost-effective ways to apply health and wellbeing strategies and streamline the process across multiple building (WELL At Scale).
An example
As an example, and taking reference from police design guidelines, it is clear that a number of synergies with WELL standards exist:
Supporting clients
As awareness of the WELL Building Standard grows, we are supporting clients in understanding how alignment and certification can be applied practically and affordably within blue light estates. We’re doing this by identifying synergies with planning and other requirements (such as BREEAM) and organisations’ own objectives.
By taking this approach and making clear the long-term benefits of pursuing WELL credits, we maximise opportunities to secure certification.
For those yet to begin this journey, we can provide clear guidance, evidence-based design recommendations and practical examples of how wellbeing can enhance performance, retention and long-term value, helping clients take confidence in how WELL Certification can further support existing strategies, policies and initiatives already in place within the force.
The synergy between BREEAM and WELL
WELL measures how buildings actively enhance the health, comfort, and performance of their occupants (differently, BREEAM focuses largely on reducing environmental impact, though it does tackle performance against a number of key social metrics). Together, the two create a powerful foundation for sustainable design, protecting the planet and the people who protect us.
Deliver Better Together
Frontline and other workers across the blue light sector deserve a workplace where they can recuperate, unwind and destress. By integrating the WELL Building Standard into our planning and design processes, we are creating blue light estates that improve outcomes for individuals, teams and communities alike.
Want to be one of the first blue light projects to be WELL certified? Contact us today to see how we can help.
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