Want a More Sustainable Office Building? Try These Ideas

I’m visiting a client in Nashville, Tennessee, and my contact is leading me through a maze of hallways in their office building. We turn one last corner and come face-to-face with a door set into a glass wall. Beyond it, I see green plants and blue sky: It’s a rooftop garden!

The lovely space is full of bushes, trees, and winding garden paths. As we stroll through it, my contact points to several wooden boxes tucked among the plants.

“Those are our beehives,” he explains. “We installed them to help pollinate the garden, and to support our local bee population. Our team loves to come up here and relax.”

I got that guided tour a few years ago as part of an Earth Day event, but it still stands out in my mind. The garden was a great example of the many wonderful things businesses are doing to rethink their spaces with an eye towards sustainability and employee wellbeing.

The Benefits of a Rooftop Garden (There Are a Lot!)

Installing a rooftop or balcony garden at your office makes it easy for employees to access a natural, refreshing space throughout the day, and it also makes your building more sustainable. Rooftop gardens act as insulation, lowering your energy bills. They can also cool the air around them and help reduce the amount of rainwater that runs off into sewers. Plus, they provide habitat for birds and insects, which can increase biodiversity in urban areas. Last but not least, there’s the added benefit of improving air quality because plants filter pollutants wherever they are. (You can learn a lot more about rooftop gardens here.)

No Garden Space? Try Office Plants Instead

Of course, not every office can build a rooftop garden (though I’ve seen many since that first tour). It’s a big investment and some rental companies might not allow it. But even if you can’t grow plants outdoors, you can get huge benefits by bringing them into the office. From the air quality perks to the psychological benefits of being near greenery, plants are worth the occasional effort of watering.

My Favorite Easy Office Plant

Many plants thrive indoors and are fairly low maintenance, like the pothos plant. My parents gave me their pothos when they moved across the country. They kept it in a large pot in their living room for years, and its vines grew long enough to stretch across the room and back two or three times!

The pothos is a great plant for beginners because if you neglect it a bit, it bounces right back as soon as it’s watered.

One More Idea: Add Fresh Fruit to Your Break Room

Stocking fresh fruit from small farms in your break room has a lot of the same benefits as adding plants: It makes your workspace more inviting and sustainable, and benefits your team and the planet. Small farms are critical to a diverse food system, a healthy environment, and a sustainable economy, and sourcing fruit from them is a great way to show your support in the office. If you order from The FruitGuys, your purchase will also help support The FruitGuys Community Fund, which awards grants to small farms for sustainability projects every year.

Your Sustainability Homework

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to look around your office this week and consider how to add some greenery (and maybe some fresh fruit, too). You’ll end up with a more sustainable office building and a happier, healthier team.