Incorporating natural elements into your office or home satisfies our biophilic needs. No, it is not a disease. It’s our natural affinity to want to be around nature. Some of the ways we include this is by opening views to natural landscapes or using water features. These aren’t always an option, so this is where office plants come to the rescue. Right now…we need to feed our biophilic requirements more than ever.

There are multiple studies that show the benefits of nature to mental health are significant. In the current Caronavirus pandemic climate, this is more than just a bonus for our workplaces. It is essential. We need to take care of our employees and teams to enforce a sense of normality and comfort. Not just in their environment, but in their own minds.

Luckily, it is not high tech, expensive gadgetry that is required, but simply good design and logic. A living wall or vertical garden will provide a natural, inviting viewpoint along with cleaning the air. This gives the occupants or workers a lift during their day and, placed in a stairwell, can entice them to be more active as well. People will want to take the stairs to enjoy the effect the green wall has on them…even though they can’t explain how or why.

One of the responses to the energy crisis of the 1970s was to seal up our buildings in order to reduce heating and cooling loads. But an unintended consequence was stagnant air. As a result, “we’re chronically under-ventilating our indoor environments, despite years of evidence suggesting we should do the contrary,” says Joseph Allen, public health researcher at Harvard. “Part of the problem is that building designers aim for the minimum acceptable standard, and not for optimal rates of ventilation”, he says.

Here are five reasons healthy hire plants can help you feel that sense of comfort:

1. Apart from work colleagues, office plants are one of the only other things that are actually alive with you at work. They give you a sense of purpose when you realise they have survived through the same pandemic as you, and are still there waiting for you when you return.
2. You’ll have better brain function. Research has found that doubling the ventilation capacity in an office also doubled cognitive function of workers who were tested. We all know that plants increase oxygen so get one on your desk today.
3. You’ll save money for your company. Extending the value of that increased brain power and productivity through a full year led to an average of $6,500 for each worker. That figure doesn’t include the value of fewer sick days, which increase the savings.
4. You will feel better. When you are functioning at full capacity, you simply feel happier during your workday.
5. Scientists know that high humidity and rising carbon dioxide concentrations cause people to feel stuffy and tired. The impacts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from off-gassing materials have been proven to be removed from the air by healthy plants. Along with the oxygen the plants add to the air, plants are one of the most effective ways of cleaning office stuffiness.

Many of us are coming back to workspaces that have been abandoned during the isolation period and we need to offer a bright, biophilic surrounding to keep people ‘grounded’ and give them a sense that everything will be okay. Even the office plants are still here!

For information or a free consultation, contact Craig Atkins at catkins@greendesign.com.au