Are Green buildings ready to support occupant health? aligning with the well building standard

Abstract

Building healthiness is a critical concern in modern society as people increasingly value the quality of life. However, the adoption of health-oriented building certification remains limited even in green buildings, despite the proven greater capability to become a healthy building. Hence, this study aims to explore the capa-bility of green-certified office buildings to meet the requirements of health-oriented building certifications, align-ing with WELL v2 Standard. The systematic literature review procedure was adopted in this study, and the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed as the methodological basis. A bibliometric analysis was conducted using R Studio and Biblioshiney software, and subsequently, a manual content analysis method was used to synthesise the literature findings. The bibliometric outcomes reveal a constant growth in academic publications, while research trends are moving towards more holistic and technology-driven areas. Further, literature synthesis demonstrates that green building features provide a significant contribution to enhancing building healthiness, while aligning with the WELL concepts in multiple pathways. However, a further study focused on an empirical evaluation, along with the exploration of the underlying reasons for this limited adoption, will be conducted as the next step of this study.