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Healthy tenants, healthy bottom line: How wellness can drive investment value
On a daily basis, commercial property investors are asking wellness-focused questions that would have seemed unorthodox even five years ago. What do tenants see when they look out the window — greenery or concrete? Is the air free of toxins? How much daylighting is there? Are there healthy food options nearby? Is the building bicycle-friendly?
One thing we know about investors — they wouldn’t ask these questions if the answers didn’t impact the bottom line. And those answers indicate how the property solves a larger, overarching issue: Does the building promote the health and well-being of its occupants? For many tenants — and, in turn, property owners — the answer to that question needs to be, “Yes.”
Wellness has emerged as an increasingly important component of responsible property investing, a natural extension of green-building initiatives. It’s all related: Many of the features that reduce a building’s carbon footprint, such as efficient HVAC s