Development of Offices – Social & Wellbeing v1.0 and Higher Education & Life Sciences (HE&LS) – Social & Wellbeing v1.0 schemes continues to progress.
Sustainability in interior fit-out and refurbishment projects has, understandably, focused on environmental performance. We need interiors that reduce waste, use resources consciously, support lower carbon choices and help buildings perform better over time, even in extreme weather, as the European summer 2026 has so clearly demonstrated. But the spaces we design, build and manage are not experienced by materials or products: they are experienced by people.
Social & Wellbeing schemes: ‘The Whole Human’
The new SKArating Social & Wellbeing schemes are intended to address impacts of fit-out and refurbishment projects on humans. Specifically, they look at how projects support physical, emotional and mental health, comfort, dignity, inclusion, learning, community and wellbeing across their full lifecycle.
Central to this approach is the concept of the whole human — the recognition that health, comfort and wellbeing are not only physical, but encompass emotional and cognitive needs. For the physical body, this may include air quality, lighting, thermal comfort, acoustics and ergonomic furniture. For the emotional aspects, it is the things that shape how a space feels and how people experience it over time, from quiet rooms, restorative spaces and community spaces to safe communication and a sense of dignity and belonging. For the cognitive mind, this may include clarity, wayfinding, sensory zoning, user control, accessibility, and the ability to work or learn without unnecessary stress.
All three sit within the scope of our developing project assessment.
SKArating Vision: Triple Bottom Line Framework
The Social & Wellbeing schemes form the first major step towards SKArating’s long-term vision of a triple bottom line framework — planet, people and profit — applied to fit-out and refurbishment projects. That means assessing projects through three interconnected lenses, or pillars: environmental performance (planet), which SKArating already covers; social and wellbeing outcomes (people), now in development; and economic and value (profit), to follow.
The benefit of a triple bottom line approach is that it encourages a holistic view of sustainability. In addition, integrating these three pillars within a single framework, rather than assessing each with different systems and methodologies, can help reduce duplication of effort, overlapping lines of responsibility, and the administrative burden of trying to run multiple, conflicting and costly certification systems on a single project. It is unsustainable and the reason it does not happen widely enough in the market. We aim to address these challenges with an affordable, scalable schemes range that sits directly within the trusted SKArating system.
What Is Happening Now?
Following a series of workshops completed in 2025, SKArating recently established an industry Research & Development (R&D) Team to take forward the workshop recommendations that informed the schemes brief. The professional team brings together expertise from a broad range of industry backgrounds including design, consultancy, project delivery, workplace operations and specialist technical areas. The work is being undertaken on a voluntary basis, continuing the collaborative approach that has always been central to SKArating’s development.
During the R&D phase, detailed research into specialist topics is being undertaken in order to draft the Good Practice Measures (GPMs) that will ultimately form the scheme requirements.
Contributors are currently:
Researching evidence, standards and emerging good and best practices.
Producing research notes to record sources, inform recommendations and scheme development.
Collaborating through weekly team sessions and ongoing peer review activities.
Drafting and refining proposed Good Practice Measures.
What Areas Are Being Investigated?
The R&D Team is currently developing and refining Good Practice Measures across eight proposed impact categories:
Physical Design & Health (PH)
Physical Design & Supportive Facilities (PDF)
Design Character & Emotional Health (EH)
Healthy Food & Water (HFW)
Social, Community & Restorative Spaces (SCRS)
Communication, Connectivity & Technology (CCT)
Project Delivery & Operation (PDO)
Education, Skills & Workforce Development (ED)
The intention is to consider impacts not only on building occupants, but also on project teams, subcontractors, facilities managers, supply chains, local and wider communities. This whole-life and whole-stakeholder perspective is a defining feature of the new schemes and reflects the growing recognition that social sustainability extends well beyond the building user alone.
Programme and Next Steps
The current programme remains focused on delivering the first full draft of the schemes for wider industry review through a public consultation stage later this year.
The project has progressed from industry workshops and exploration activities into the detailed Research & Development phase. This will be followed by steering committee engagement and approval, public consultation and final scheme refinement before publication and launch. The aim is to ensure the schemes are practical, proportionate and informed by the expertise of the wider industry.
Looking Forward
The development of the Social & Wellbeing schemes represents more than the creation of another assessment tool. It is a key step in SKArating’s broader ambition to provide the interior fit-out and refurbishment market with a practical, proportionate and holistic sustainability framework.
By placing human health, wellbeing and social outcomes alongside environmental performance and economic costs and value, the new schemes aim to help project teams create spaces that are not only resource efficient, but genuinely supportive of the people and communities they serve.
As the triple bottom line vision continues to develop, this work provides the foundation for the next chapter of SKArating’s evolution.
If you have any questions, would like any information for your project, or are keen to learn about becoming an Assessor, get in touch – we would love to talk.
More recently, young advocates such as Greta Thunberg have been clear about where we were headed. Not alarmist – clear. And weeks like this one we’ve been through are exactly the case study she, and countless scientists, designers, and sustainability professionals before and after her, have been warning about for decades. Except now, it’s not a warning. It’s the news.
Schools closed because it was too dangerous for children to travel or try and learn in overheated classrooms. Offices became greenhouses – all that floor-to-ceiling glass doing its job beautifully for natural light and external views until temperatures soared, at which point it became a liability. Air conditioning units run flat out, and electricity bills reflect this. Trains and commercial events are cancelled. The infrastructure and built environment we built for a different climate is simply not fit for this one or the one we’re heading towards.
At SKArating, we have been making this argument since our inception. Sustainable design is not a preference – it is engineering for reality. And weeks like this make it impossible to argue otherwise.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong
The irony of weeks such as in June 2026 is not lost on us. Buildings designed to project modernity – maximised glazing, open atria, south-facing facades with no shading or thermal comfort strategy – became the very embodiment of what sustainable design has long warned against. Solar gain unchecked. No passive cooling. No biophilic buffer. The result: indoor temperatures that make working dangerous, not merely uncomfortable, and energy bills that reflect the emergency mechanical cooling required to compensate.
These are not freak occurrences. They are design failures that were and still are predictable – and preventable.
The Triple Bottom Line
What distinguishes the SKArating methodology is its refusal to treat sustainability as a single-axis problem. The triple bottom line – people, planet, and profit – is a design framework that ensures every decision in an interior fit-out or refurbishment is evaluated across three interconnected lenses.
Planet. Reducing embodied carbon, maximising resource efficiency, selecting materials with verifiable provenance, and designing for circularity and longevity – not just for certification.
People. Thermal comfort, air quality, daylighting, acoustic wellbeing, and biophilic connection. Emotional health and comfort. A building that makes its occupants unsafe has failed, regardless of its energy rating.
Profit. Lower operational costs, reduced energy cost fluctuation exposure, higher occupant productivity, greater asset resilience, brand and image value and regulatory future-proofing. Sustainable design is the sound investment – and June 2026 weather patterns proved it in real time, on electricity bills and commercial or social activities across the country.
The SKArating framework assesses interior fit-outs and refurbishments across 80+ criteria to create drive and accountability at every stage of design, construction and operation. Not as a burden – as a discipline that makes better buildings.
What You Can Do – Starting Now
The knowledge exists. The methodology is proven. The business case has never been stronger. Here is where to start:
Sustainable Design Guidance Access SKArating’s comprehensive design guidance – practical, measurable, and applicable to your next project from day one.
Assessor Training Become a qualified SKArating Assessor or SKArating Competent Professional. Gain the skills to evaluate, advise on, and certify sustainable interior fit-outs.
Get assessed on your next interior fit-out Already planning a refurbishment? Bring SKArating in at early briefing and design stage – where the decisions that matter are still available to make.
Be the Change. Make the Change.
We have had 30 years of warnings. We do not need another 30 years of reports. The built environment is where the climate crisis is won or lost – and you are living in the built environment.
That makes this ours to shape. The tools are here. The training is here. The moment is unambiguous.
The Board’s aim is to steer, support and benchmark sustainable good practice in the interiors and fit-out industry for the benefit of all.
Following sizeable impact and based on industry response and resourcing capacity, the SKArating Board has revised the dates and timelines for updating SKArating schemes and developing new ones.
Roadmap latest:
The Offices Environmental 2.0 scheme has been welcomed by the industry and market. Benchmark levels are pushing new good practice and lifting standard practice in both circularity issues and the selection of products that align with the embodied carbon benchmarks.
There is strong interest from consultants looking to integrate environmental consistency in design guides that align with clients’ targets of net zero alignment and who recognise the leading position the UK and SKArating have in providing these.
Bronze is the New Gold – Good practice levels have been re-set and lifted to reflect current good practice and this will now be reflected in the ratings. It is harder to achieve a Silver and Gold rated project under the new 2.0 schemes. Golds are expected initially to be few and far between until the market uplifts practices. Our aim is to keep driving the market and set the standards. So, once this happens, we will move levels up again.
The approach of removing the Social & Wellbeing related measures from the Environmental schemes is being reflected across all our schemes. Social & Wellbeing related measures will move into a new set of schemes, and the environmental measures streamlined and kept in line with net zero, aiming towards 100% circularity. Numerous universities are already integrating the upgraded Environmental good practice benchmarks into their procurement processes and performance briefs.
The development of Social & Wellbeing schemes that complete, improve and simplify the actions and performance of issues around individuals and community groups related to a fit-out and refurbishment project is strongly supported by the Higher Education and Offices sectors. The current market sees incomplete, cumbersome and unsustainable schemes that leave project needs unmet and impede sector improvement.
The Higher Education (HE) schemes scope will be expanded to include Life Sciences fit-out and refurbishment projects. This will incorporate Laboratory and related research spaces. There is often a natural overlap of interior areas and use in these sectors and combining them provides an efficient approach to scheme development. The updated scheme will be called SKArating for Higher Education & Life Sciences (HE&LS).
The final development area is the Economic & Value pillar. Upfront financial costs has hitherto been the loudest driver for projects, often resulting in poor value, unpredictable quality and volatility in delivering good spaces and buildings – and leaving our industry often unable to deliver the best to our clients and the wider society we are here to serve. The Board’s aim is to widen the scope of ‘cost and value’ and correct economic thinking beyond just finance. This will allow projects, clients and our industry to uncover, untapped, hidden value and deliver more of our sector’s objectives with less strife and more joy.
The SKArating Board and Central Team remain open to expressions of interest to be involved in any of the roadmap work streams. Existing and new Partners and work-stream leads are always invited to support our activities as they align with theirs. Additionally, all medium or light contributions that fit with each stakeholder’s capacity are equally warmly invited and greatly valued.
SKArating is by the industry for the industry. We have demonstrated 20 years of quiet leadership in sustainable interior fit-outs, and are now stepping up to lead the evolution of the sector towards new heights of sustainable practice and value.
In our latest episode, we unpack how Wagamama’s Clarks Village restaurant became a standout example of sustainable fit-out in action — with insights from:
Alex Neil, Group Head of Construction, Wagamama Stewart Muir, Senior Technical Consultant & SKA Assessor, Bioregional Together, they share what it really takes to embed sustainability into a fast-paced construction programme.
Here’s a taste of what you’ll hear:
Why setting a baseline is the most important step — and how it shaped the whole project
Energy results that surprised everyone — including a 14–20% reduction through better monitoring
What a 50% rise in water costs taught the team about the value of real-time data
How recycled chopsticks, ocean-waste plastic chairs and furniture reuse brought circularity to life
The growing role of suppliers — and why contractor engagement has never mattered more
How sustainability became a competitive (and fun) part of Wagamama’s operations
A behind-the-scenes look at assessing with SKArating — and why achieving Gold was a team sport
Alex and Stewart also share how the project shifted internal culture, supported net-zero commitments, and demonstrated the commercial benefits of smarter energy and water systems.
If you’re exploring SKArating for the first time — or looking to elevate your approach — this episode is packed with practical, real-world insights.
If you would like to receive more information or have any questions about the Offices Scheme update, please sign up for our newsletter in the footer below, or contact us via email at support@skarating.org.
Following annual review of our charge rates we announce that the project certification fee is increasing in line with inflation to £900 plus VAT. This increase will take place from Monday, December 8th 2025.
All projects proceeding to certification from December 8th onwards will be paying this rate irrespective of when they were registered.
Any queries on this please email support@skarating.org and our team will be happy to assist you.
