DAY 2 • WEDNESDAY 16 SEPTEMBER • 14.20 – 14.40
WELL Equity Rating - a framework for designing places where everyone can thrive
As organisations increasingly focus on wellbeing, accessibility, and inclusion, the challenge is turning ambition into measurable action.
This session explores how equity-focused design frameworks are helping create environments that support a wider range of human needs, including neurodivergent users, while delivering better outcomes for everyone.
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The connection between wellbeing, equity, accessibility, and inclusion
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Designing environments that support diverse human needs
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Moving beyond compliance towards measurable outcomes
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What leading organisations are doing to create more inclusive places
Ann Marie Aguilar, Senior Vice President, EMEA, International WELL Building Institute (IWBI)
Ann-Marie Aguilar
Ann Marie Aguilar joined the IWBI team in 2016, and from a base in London oversees the day-to-day activities of IWBI across the EMEA region. She supports the business development and technical teams and is the first point of contact for clients and design teams interested in all applications of WELL Certification.
Ann Marie’s role is to support “early adopters” of the WELL Building Standard, by facilitating communication with IWBI technical experts to provide international translation, alternative adherence pathways and alignment with local sustainability rating tools. Ann Marie’s expertise in environmental sustainability and well-being has helped deliver strategic adoption of WELL into the UK, Ireland, continental Europe and the Middle East with support from BRE, Green Building Councils and other local market partners. She is also responsible for implementing new directives for research, growth, recruitment and education.
She brings to IWBI a technical background in sustainability consulting, having worked for 11 years with Arup Associates, the architectural consulting arm of Arup in their London offices. Her 17 years of global project experience range in scale from campus size to small city developments and identify a clear sustainability vision, objectives and measurable targets.
She has extensive experience in LEED Certification, material deconstruction and material reuse processes. Whilst there she developed Arup’s health and well-being consultancy offering across their global operations. Previously, Ann Marie led her own sustainability consulting business in New York City.
Among the first cohort of WELL APs, she now also provides education and support to industry as a WELL Faculty member.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in architecture from the New York Institute of Technology and received Chartered Environmentalist status in 2012. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts, member of the Sustainability Futures Group at the RIBA and a member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment.