Making human impact easier to see, and harder to ignore.
Gayathri Unnikrishnan is an author, impact strategist and designer examining the impact that buildings, products and climate decisions have on people.
About GayathriGayathri Unnikrishnan has spent her career changing what the building industry measures and values.
She led the development of WELL v2, now used across more than 4.6 billion square feet in 125 countries, helping move health and well-being from an aspiration into industry practice.
Today, organizations bring her in when a commitment to people needs to become a strategy, a decision or a credible claim. Through Liveable, she helps leaders understand how their buildings, products and operations affect people, identify what needs to change and build evidence that can withstand scrutiny.
Her book People Positive takes this work further, asking how design, sustainability, power and leadership shape who benefits from the systems we build.
NEW BOOK
People Positive
Building the Human Dimension of Sustainability
People Positive is a practical guide for anyone who wants to understand and improve the human impact of their work.
The book offers a practical framework for understanding who a decision affects, where responsibility sits and how human impact can be built into briefs, budgets, specifications, procurement and operations.
Climate action is changing buildings, products and cities at speed. People Positive asks who experiences those changes, who benefits, who carries the burden and how we can know.
“People Positive widens the lens of sustainability, asking us to measure not only what our decisions do to the planet, but what they do to people. A timely and practical contribution to building the just transition we urgently need.”
Christiana Figueres | Former Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; Founding Partner, Global Optimism
Work with Gayathri
Advisory
Through Liveable, Gayathri helps organizations understand, improve and communicate how their buildings, products and operations affect people.
Engagements can include social sustainability strategy, impact measurement, product and procurement frameworks, portfolio strategy and reports that hold up under scrutiny.
Speaking
Gayathri brings an inside view of how ambitious ideas travel through organizations, where they lose power and what helps them survive contact with budgets, politics and everyday decisions.
Her talks draw from design, sustainability, standards, power and leadership.
Decision Labs
Hands-on sessions built around a real project. Participants trace who is affected, surface what is being missed and work through how dignity and human impact can shape the choice before it is made.
Ideas and Conversations
-
![]()
The Impact Edit
Field notes on design, sustainability, measurement, power and whatever is making Gayathri rethink the work.
-
![]()
Changing Tomorrow
Conversations with designers, researchers, founders and practitioners about the choices, compromises and unexpected turns behind meaningful change.
