Living Walls and Plants to support improved Mental Health

Posted by Scotscape on 1st November 2019 -

Support Staff and Clients - incorporate living walls and plants into your offices and reap the feel-good benefits!

As the mental health epidemic sweeps through our society bringing people back to nature to subdue the effects of modern living has never been more important.

Our increasingly urbanised society has removed what we need, natural light, nature, quiet space to work. Its all go, go, go, fast technology, hard glossy architecture, heavy traffic, pollution – these are not the ideal fit for a happy healthy human who has not evolved quite at that same speed as the latest i-phone.

How do living walls and plants help?

This is where horticulture comes in. Experts and research tell us that people like plants and they improve mental health, research from the environmental hub ‘Arboretum’ tells us that from a survey of 2,000 participants that 56 % of Londoners agreed that plants make them happier. The evidence continues with research from Arup, the RHS, Nasa – to prove that our human connection to plants is irrefutable and having our leafy friends around (especially pollutant busters cited by NASA and the RHS) really does bring genuine benefit to building users.

Where's the proof?

The Well Building Standard is an accreditation benchmark which covers all areas of engineering healthy buildings, from incorporating plants, natural light, break out space, community areas, healthy sustainable non-toxic furniture and fittings and effective air filtration – (to name just a few key markers). Well Building was adopted by the buildings engineers Cundall, the impact on productivity and staff well-being was measured and here are the results:

• Perceived well-being up 25% to 76%
• Perceived productivity up from 27% to 73%
• Sense of community up from 28% to 79%
• Enjoyment of the environment up from 48% to 82%
• Corporate image up from 38% to 88%

You can’t argue with that!!

What did this mean economically for the company?

• In HR terms, absenteeism rates have reduced significantly; they are 22% lower than those of a typical new office development (49% reduction compared with a 27% average), equating to a circa £90,000 annual saving
• Staff turnover is down 27% in the year, compared with stable levels for the five years before the move, equating to a circa £120,000 annual saving

With statistics like this it is no wonder that smart employers are investing considerable resource into improving their office interiors.

The Scotscape Smartscape team incorporate living walls into both interior and exterior locations and also offer an interior landscaping consultancy service designing horticulturally smart installations to benefit building users.

If you are serious about providing happy healthy, workplace environments for your staff get in touch [email protected]