Where LEED and BREEAM focus mainly on a building's environmental footprint, the WELL Building Standard certifies how the building affects the health and wellbeing of its occupants - air and water quality, lighting, acoustics, thermal comfort, and mental health considerations. It is increasingly requested alongside LEED or BREEAM rather than instead of them, especially for workplace and residential projects where occupant experience is a selling point.

As with the other certifications, the data a WELL assessment needs - daylight levels, ventilation rates, material transparency - overlaps heavily with information a properly developed BIM model can already provide.