How Cundall lives and breathes health and wellbeing

By Simon Wyatt

Health and wellbeing is central to everything we do at Cundall. As part of our sustainability roadmap which sets out where Cundall can have the biggest impact, health and wellbeing is the one impact that applies equally across our four cornerstones: our homes & community, industry leadership, our projects and our workspaces.

For years the focus of sustainable development has been only on the environmental impact of our projects but over the last few years we have seen a shift to the effects the indoor environments has on people.

Central to this has been the rise of the WELL Building Standard, which Cundall has been heavily involved in; delivering the first WELL certified projects in Europe, MENA and now the first Platinum rated building in Europe. We have been extremely fortunate to position ourselves as the industry leaders in health and wellbeing, working on over 50% of the live WELL projects in the UK and speaking at major industry events.

To practice what we preach, sensors have been installed in each of the Cundall offices to measure indoor environmental quality (IEQ). We are already seeing the benefits and have made minor modifications to improve IEQ and hence productivity of our offices. We have created a tool which takes simulation or real time IEQ data to quantify productivity and hence financial performance of a space to help optimise architectural layouts. The next step will be to offer this service to our clients so that they can understand and optimise their environments.

As an organisation we understand that our greatest assets is our people, we are therefore committed to providing working environments where our people are valued, engaged, productive and can feel part of a wider community. A new Cundall office selection and fit-out guide is being produced to bring together the lessons we have learnt in health and wellbeing.

This does not just apply to the physical workspace but also the corporate environment. We have an excellent human resources team whose aim is to support our needs. One of the key focuses will be the introduction of a mental health policy and support structure, championed at Partner level. Mental health illnesses affect one in four of us during our lives, so it vital to have an effective support system in place to support staff. We will be looking for volunteers to become mental health first aiders via official mental health training courses in each of our offices.

Together we can create a positive change not only to our own workspaces but to our projects and the wider industry.

Cundall recently has launched their new sustainability roadmap, One Planet, One Chance which includes far reaching targets including being a carbon positive business by 2025. Click here to view our full roadmap document.